Wal-Marts, singular
David Donnell
David.Donnell at EARTHLINK.NET
Sat Dec 29 00:30:45 UTC 2007
I reckon you're right, Wilson. Let's say it is a possessive form (is
that what you mean by the apostrophe?)...
However, I can't think of other smalltown MO store names right now
that use such a possessive form, if it's not a proper name... (other
than Walgreen's, about which I ain't rightly sure).
I'm sure someone will suggest some non-proper name store names with
that possessive feature, to convince me that "Wal-Mart's" is what
they mean, and that it's not so unique.
Thanks.
DD
At 4:35 PM -0500 12/28/07, Wilson Gray wrote:
>It's not _Wal-Mart's_ that the folk from home are saying? That's the
>way that I interpret it when I hear my East-Texas kinfolk say it.
>
>-Wilson
>
>On Dec 28, 2007 3:01 PM, David Donnell <David.Donnell at earthlink.net> wrote:
>> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
>>-----------------------
>> Sender: American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>> Poster: David Donnell <David.Donnell at EARTHLINK.NET>
>> Subject: Wal-Marts, singular
>>
>>-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>> Back home in smalltown Missouri, I often hear people say, for
>> example, "I'm going over to Wal-Marts." So the following CNN sentence
>> baffled me for a moment:
>>
>> http://tinyurl.com/28swh6
>>
>> "Wal-Marts are not supposed to return opened packages to the sales floor."
>>
>> I immediately thought it was a typo, that they obviously meant to
>> write "Wal-Marts IS not supposed to return opened packages to the
>> sales floor".
>>
>> (You can take the boy outa the country...)
>>
>> DD
>> Missouri-native in NYC
>>
>> ------------------------------------------------------------
>> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>>
>
>
>
>--
>All say, "How hard it is that we have to die"---a strange complaint to
>come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
>-----
> -Sam'l Clemens
>
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