"greengrocer's apostrophe" (was Re: Cam(pb)ell)

[Natalie Maynor]

Peter McGraw wrote:

> I didn't mean to imply that I ever say, "I'm going to the supermarket."  I,
> too, say I'm "going to the store."  "Going to the store" always means a
> food store (super or otherwise), never a drug store or a department store,
> for instance.

This interests me because I had been thinking not long ago about what
I considered the long-ago habit of saying "the store" for "the grocery
store."  I had come across a reference to "the store" in something
set in the past -- part of Eudora Welty's _One Writer's Beginnings_,
I think, and I sat there thinking "I remember when we used to say
that."  The fact that I thought about it that way supports my feeling
that I don't hear it used that way these days.  But you do.  What about
others of you?

I do have one friend, from various places -- his parents moved frequently
during his childhood, who says going to "the supermarket" or buying
whatever at "the supermarket."  I've kidded him about it and said that
that sounded weird.  Do others of you use "supermarket" that way?
   --Natalie Maynor (maynor at ra.msstate.edu)