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

[Peter A. McGraw]

--On Sat, Aug 5, 2000 8:10 AM -0500

> 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.

And Natalie Maynor replied:

> 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?
>

You know, I think I've revived "going to the store" only recently, and I'm
not sure why.  My feeling is that it's been lying in my passive vocabulary
for years, but for unknown reasons not pulled out and used.   I think what
I did before I revived it, and still do probably most of the time, is
simply name the store.  Because we get most of our groceries at Fred Meyer,
most often I say, "I'm going to Freddy's," or less frequently, "I'm
stopping at Albertson's on the way home," or (if I'm absolutely sure
neither of those will have what we need, and we absolutely have to have
it), "I guess I'll go to Safeway."  I can't explain why, if my hunch about
recent revival is right, I felt no need of a generic word for such a long
time.

Peter

****************************************************************************
                               Peter A. McGraw
                   Linfield College   *   McMinnville, OR
                            pmcgraw at linfield.edu