Wal-Marts, singular

[Benjamin Zimmer]

And then there's the situation where a restaurant chain decides to
change its name to bring it into line with widespread customer
(mis)perceptions.  Such was the case with the erstwhile "Friendly
Restaurant" and "Church Chicken" chains, now "Friendly's Restaurant"
and "Church's Chicken".

--Ben Zimmer


On Dec 29, 2007 8:57 AM, Joseph Salmons <jsalmons at wisc.edu> wrote:
>
> 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
> >
> >> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> >> -----------------------
> >> 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...)
> >>>>

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