7-Eleven

[Doug Harris]

"Everywhere," of course, being the generic here: We in Central NY do
not have 7-Elevens. It's quite possible there are a number of people
in this area who have no idea what the name means, it no longer
meaning what it once did any more than does Motel 6. (And if they're
still leaving the lights on for us at the latter, someone oughta have a
word with them about conservation.)
dh

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----- Original message ----------------------------------------
From: "Mark Mandel" <thnidu at GMAIL.COM>
To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
Received: 4/6/2009 4:15:32 PM
Subject: Re: 7-Eleven


>Is there any evidence that he meant it to mean generic 'convenience store'?
>This looks to me like an everyday metonymy using a typical example to stand
>for an entire class of referents. What if he'd said "... until 3:00, when
>they walk out of school and around the corner and pick up a Hershey bar"?
>Would that make "Hershey bar" mean 'generic high-calorie snack food'?

>The absence of an article is a different question, but still not unusual,
>7-Eleven being enough of an institution, and ubiquitous enough, that it
>doesn't matter which one: they're everywhere, and they're all the same.

>Mark Mandel


>On Mon, Apr 6, 2009 at 2:40 PM, Charles Doyle <cdoyle at uga.edu> wrote:

>> The most recent _Newsweek_ contains an article "Stealth Health for Kids";
>> quoting "behavioral economist" David Just of Cornell U:  "Removing food
>> choices is a good solution until they [school children] graduate or until
>> they go to 7-Eleven on Saturdays" (p. 46).
>>
>> I was unfamiliar with "7-Eleven" being used generically and abstractly
>> (without "the" or "a" or a pluralizing "-s") for 'convenience store'.  Is
>> that usage common somewhere?  (The phrase "go to 7-Eleven" gets a couple of
>> thousand Google hits.)
>>
>> --Charlie
>>
>>

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