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My local paper had the following headline: New Threat for Chemist's. I questioned the use of an errant apostrophe and received this reply from the Deputy Editor:
I see nothing wrong with the possessive apostrophe in my headline. A chemist is a person, not a shop, and traditionally, there is only one leading chemist with assistants in each pharmacy. A chemist's shop, or simply chemist's, therefore seems perfectly acceptable to me.
I was horrified by such a response from a journalist and would be grateful for your comments.
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apostrophe
My local paper had the following headline: New Threat for Chemist's. I questioned the use of an errant apostrophe and received this reply from the Deputy Editor: I see nothing wrong with the possessive apostrophe in my headline. A chemist is a person, not a shop, and traditionally, there is only one leading chemist with assistants in each pharmacy. A chemist's shop, or simply chemist's, therefore seems perfectly acceptable to me.
I was horrified by such a response from a journalist and would be grateful for your comments.
Re: apostrophe
What an embarrassing response from the deputy editor - I hope you responded, and perhaps copied in the editor.
Re: apostrophe
> My local paper had the following headline: New Threat
> for Chemist's. I questioned the use of an errant
> apostrophe and received this reply from the Deputy
> Editor: I see nothing wrong with the possessive
> apostrophe in my headline. A chemist is a person,
> not a shop, and traditionally, there is only one
> leading chemist with assistants in each pharmacy. A
> chemist's shop, or simply chemist's, therefore seems
> perfectly acceptable to me.
> I was horrified by such a response from a journalist
> and would be grateful for your comments.
The term "chemist" is only colloquial term for what we would call a community pharmacist. Anyone who is registered with the Royal Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain, and is therefore entitled to practise in the UK, is registered as a "pharmaceutical chemist" or "pharmacist" in short. These two terms are also legally protected for use exclusively by those persons registered with the RPSGB, but not the term "chemist".
To me, a chemist is someone who deals with chemicals, paint and plastics, whereas a pharmacist is someone who dispenses prescriptions, sell you medicines over the counter (OTC), and gives you health and/or medication advice. I would reserve the term "chemist" for the premises on which a pharmacy business is conducted.
Hope that helps. ;o)
Re: apostrophe
It's getting worse all the time, isn't it? The fact that the deputy editor was trying to justify the mistake, rather gives the game away that he/she didn't understand what the headline actually meant, even if he/she wrote it in the first place! Apostrophes seem to be used randomly now and, sadly, they'll probably continue to be so, until it becomes an 'accepted' part of the English language - if that's not the situation already.