Wal-Marts, singular

[Joseph Salmons]

The surprising thing about this discussion, at least sitting here in
snowy Madison, Wisconsin, is that nobody has mentioned this as a basic
characteristic of restaurant names. We held the 17th International
Conference on Historical Linguistics here in 2005 and the restaurant
guide included this note, suggested by a couple of folks who earned
PhDs here:

Restaurant names are regularly marked in this region by addition of an
-s suffix. Almost any of the names below can be produced with a final s.

In various discussions about this, I think it's always been reckoned
as genitive, as Wilson suggests, and it's downright unusual to hear
anything that sounds like a possible personal name, and stuff probably
beyond, without the -s (examples from State St. by campus):

Porta Bella > Porta Bella's (which was around when Dennis studied
here, I think)
Casa de Lara > Casa de Lara's
Himal Chuli > Himal Chuli's
Buraka > Buraka's
Kabul > Kabul's
El Dorado > El Dorado's (not on State St., though)

You don't hear it on some names ending in familiar (non-proper) nouns,
and I have heard some speakers declare things like these ungrammatical:

Sun Porch, *Sun Porch's
White Horse, *White Horse's

Joe


On Dec 29, 2007, at 7:21 AM, Dennis Preston wrote:

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Dennis Preston <preston at MSU.EDU>
> Subject:      Re: Wal-Marts, singular
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> DD,
>
> You are right in being sure.
>
> It's very common here in Michigan. It's more common when the store
> name is a personal name (Meiers, which is just Meier, Krogers, which
> is just Kroger, Penneys, which is just JC Penney) but extends to ones
> that are not (even Targets and K-Marts). Wal-Mart is (luckily) newer
> here in MI, so it was not covered in this study, which was done more
> that ten years ago (as a class paper and sadly not published). Hard
> to say if it is a possessive or by analogy with such things as Sears
> (which is Sears, not Sear's). Its use, by the way, is sensitive to
> sex and shopping frequency at an establishment.
>
> dInIs
>
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>> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>> Poster:       David Donnell <David.Donnell at EARTHLINK.NET>
>> Subject:      Re: Wal-Marts, singular
>> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>> 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
>>>>
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>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> --
>>> 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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>>> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>>
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>> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>
>
> --
> Dennis R. Preston
> University Distinguished Professor
> Department of English
> Morrill Hall 15-C
> Michigan State University
> East Lansing, MI 48864 USA
>
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