By Will Fielding

Greengrocers are famed for their flippant use of apostrophes. But in light of the current fashion for major companies to do away with the possessive apostrophe in their brand names, perhaps Greengrocers will cease to be seen as linguistic oafs and instead be known as marketing trendsetters.

In the world of branding, seemingly anything goes when it comes to using possessive apostrophes in company names. There are two main camps in terms of usage. Those who do – such as McDonald’s, Levi’s and Sainsbury’s. Those who don’t – such as Barclays, Ladbrokes and Harrods. And then the odd company, such as Waterstone’s, who have decided to straddle the fence, using apostrophes in their text but leaving them out of their brand.

As the term ‘greengrocer’s apostrophe’ suggests, people have a long history of battling with this awkward piece of punctuation. When Barclays was asked about the lack of one in their brand, they said “Barclays is no longer associated with the family name,” and that the apostrophe had “just disappeared over the years.” This seems to suggest that they consider the sound of their brand to have more value than the layout.

Contemporary language is forever being shortened and simplified. Emails, texts and social media have been lobbying for people to dissect their language into ever more manageable chunks since they began. Also, now that so many companies see their futures being reliant on online business, if they wish their brand name to resemble their URL, they must first remove all punctuation.

There is no single reason why many companies have decided to ignore the strict rules of the possessive apostrophe. I suspect that it usually comes down to a combination of things, from brand independence and contemporary usage to the stylistic bias of designers and the pressures they face when tasked with bringing freshness to tired old brands. Personally though, we tend to recommend keeping them in to help communicate a brand’s personality. But then, being writers, we would say that, wouldn’t we?