# Imagine this…if you McWill. **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [October 17, 2000, 1:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/imagine-this-if-you-mcwill/37204 "2000-10-17T01:28:35Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![desdemona](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e274bd/32.png) [@desdemona](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/desdemona)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2000, 1:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/imagine-this-if-you-mcwill/37204/1 "2000-10-17T01:28:35Z")
It’s early morning and I stop at the local McDonald’s drive-“thru.” I’m going to get a couple of those breakfast items that are an English muffin holding an egg, some cheese and a ham-like slice. Yes, you are right, it’s the Egg McMuffin I’m writing about here. Okay, so I want two of these. Do I order 2 **Eggs** McMuffin, or 2 Egg Mc **Muffins**? Personally, I’m of the brothers-in-law school of thought. I believe that my eggs will be prepared in the McMuffin style, and I would order 2 Eggs McMuffin. Others swear that Egg McMuffin is a single name, and so the plural would be attached to the end of the term. Where do you stand on this? df ---
**Author:** ![Stupendous\_man](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a8b319/32.png) [@Stupendous\_man](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stupendous_man)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2000, 1:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/imagine-this-if-you-mcwill/37204/2 "2000-10-17T01:36:40Z")
Since “Egg McMuffin” in in itself a complete term indicating a single object, I think that “Muffins” is correct. ---
**Author:** ![sethdallob](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e36b37/32.png) [@sethdallob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sethdallob)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2000, 1:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/imagine-this-if-you-mcwill/37204/3 "2000-10-17T01:37:00Z")
IMHO, the Egg McMuffin is the item name - not a preparation of eggs. Thus, “2 Egg McMuffin’s” would be my approach. You don’t offer 2 corned beef’s sandwich, you order 2 corned beef sandwiches. ---
**Author:** ![Lsura](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7993a0/32.png) [@Lsura](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lsura)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2000, 1:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/imagine-this-if-you-mcwill/37204/4 "2000-10-17T01:38:58Z")
I drive up to the speaker thingy, and mumble well enough so that they only get “2” and “McMuffin”…it’s up to them to figure out exactly what I want and how many. That way I can be impressed if they get it right, and have something to complain about if they get it wrong… ---
**Author:** ![Punoqllads](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/d2c977/32.png) [@Punoqllads](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Punoqllads)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2000, 1:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/imagine-this-if-you-mcwill/37204/5 "2000-10-17T01:55:37Z")
desdemona, as [Dave Barry](http://www.herald.com/content/archive/living/barry/content.htm)’s alter ego, Mister Language Person, pointed out, the proper pluralization of “Egg McMuffin” is “Attorneys General”. ---
**Author:** ![CnoteChris](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/278dde/32.png) [@CnoteChris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CnoteChris)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2000, 2:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/imagine-this-if-you-mcwill/37204/6 "2000-10-17T02:05:56Z")
I don’t know why it would matter. No one can understand a damn thing over those radio shack speakers anyway. ---
**Author:** ![MEBuckner](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mebuckner/32/2896_2.png) [@MEBuckner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MEBuckner)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2000, 2:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/imagine-this-if-you-mcwill/37204/7 "2000-10-17T02:08:49Z")
“Yeah, I’d like an Egg McMuffin. And gimme another Egg McMuffin with that.” (An old joke originally involving the plural of mongoose, IIRC.) ---
**Author:** ![Celyn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/9dc877/32.png) [@Celyn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Celyn)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2000, 2:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/imagine-this-if-you-mcwill/37204/8 "2000-10-17T02:21:31Z")
Some people choose not to buy anthing from from McDonald’s. You must, presumably, have already decided to bless them with your custom. This does, unfortunately, seem to leave you with certain difficult grammatical decisions. Very troublesome, indeed. Why not ask the McDonalds company for advice? (And if you do, and if you get any response at all, please, please share them with the rest of us. (Grammatical advice from McDonald’s would be worth seeing!) Love, peace, and joyy to people who eat pet cats instead of McDonalds.) Celyn That was only a joke, and it was a very nasty one. The cat lives!) ---
**Author:** ![Sofa\_King](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/58956e/32.png) [@Sofa\_King](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sofa_King)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2000, 2:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/imagine-this-if-you-mcwill/37204/9 "2000-10-17T02:27:20Z")
They speak English at your McDonalds? ---
**Author:** ![Kamino\_Neko](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kamino_neko/32/34_2.png) [@Kamino\_Neko](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kamino_Neko)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2000, 2:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/imagine-this-if-you-mcwill/37204/10 "2000-10-17T02:31:06Z")
‘Eggs McMuffin’ sounds like ‘Roast Beefs Sandwich’ to my mind. It’s not a style of egg, it’s a style of McMuffin. ---
**Author:** ![Kat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/b19c9b/32.png) [@Kat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kat)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2000, 2:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/imagine-this-if-you-mcwill/37204/11 "2000-10-17T02:42:18Z")
You could always try “I want 2 of them Egg Muffin thingies.” ---
**Author:** ![desdemona](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e274bd/32.png) [@desdemona](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/desdemona)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2000, 2:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/imagine-this-if-you-mcwill/37204/12 "2000-10-17T02:49:53Z")
I liked Celyn’s suggestion and went over to the McD’s site. I suspect they get a lot of these inane questions because there isn’t an obvious link to send a message. This does have crank phone call potential. Do kids still make crank calls? Someone just told me that if I order Eggs McMuffin, the person at the register will suggest that there is only one egg for each McMuffin. ---
**Author:** ![Robot\_Arm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/robot_arm/32/18280_2.png) [@Robot\_Arm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Robot_Arm)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2000, 2:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/imagine-this-if-you-mcwill/37204/13 "2000-10-17T02:58:32Z")
I like “Eggs McMuffin”, by analogy with “Eggs Benedict” and just in a sense of general intellectual perversity. In the same vein, the plural of “mongoose” should be “polygoose”. ---
**Author:** ![porcupine](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ac91a4/32.png) [@porcupine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/porcupine)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2000, 2:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/imagine-this-if-you-mcwill/37204/14 "2000-10-17T02:59:36Z")
I would go with “Two Egg McMuffins.” Actually, that’s a lie; I would go with “2 Sausage McMuffins with Egg.” ---
**Author:** ![Rosebud](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/ea666f/32.png) [@Rosebud](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rosebud)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2000, 3:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/imagine-this-if-you-mcwill/37204/15 "2000-10-17T03:19:49Z")
According to the Pulitzer Prize worthy folks at The Onion, [William Safire](http://www.theonion.com/onion3633/index.html) has addressed this 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![evilbeth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/evilbeth/32/2268_2.png) [@evilbeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/evilbeth)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2000, 5:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/imagine-this-if-you-mcwill/37204/16 "2000-10-17T05:43:02Z")
**Tengu** said: > [@](#): > > It’s not a style of egg, it’s a style of McMuffin. Well, as a former McDonalds grunt, allow me to interject that McMuffin eggs are a separate entity from the other eggs that are used. I know that you realize that the egg on a bacon, egg and cheese biscuit (if you have those in your area) is a different style of egg from the poached-style egg on a McMuffin. However, at least in some stores, the egg for the McMuffin’s is the only egg that actually comes to the store as a normal egg–in shell, straight from a chicken. (Well, not _straight_ from but you know what I mean.) The other eggs for the biscuits and the scrambled ones for the platters come in cartons–prescrambled–and they are just poured onto the grill and cooked that way. McMuffin eggs actually have to be cracked open and steamed. Therefore, while I agree that the proper grammar for requesting multiple McMuffin sandwiches is “Egg (or Sausage) McMuffin **s** ”, the egg on a McMuffin _is_ a separate entity within the realm of McEggs. ---
**Author:** ![evilbeth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/evilbeth/32/2268_2.png) [@evilbeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/evilbeth)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2000, 5:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/imagine-this-if-you-mcwill/37204/17 "2000-10-17T05:44:22Z")
After that last post, I feel dirty again. Like I need to go home and wash the smell of Big Mac sauce out of my hair. I’m having flashbacks. ---
**Author:** ![bibliophage](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bibliophage/32/7615_2.png) [@bibliophage](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bibliophage)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2000, 6:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/imagine-this-if-you-mcwill/37204/18 "2000-10-17T06:35:03Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by desdemona \* > **Personally, I’m of the brothers-in-law school of thought.** I used to be too, until I needed to call my brother-in-law and realized I didn’t know my brother’s-in-law telephone number. You can’t imagine my sense of relief when I finally realized all I needed was my brother-in-law’s number. ---
**Author:** ![Geek\_Mecha](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/ecae2f/32.png) [@Geek\_Mecha](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Geek_Mecha)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2000, 6:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/imagine-this-if-you-mcwill/37204/19 "2000-10-17T06:56:07Z")
**evilbeth** , I feel your pain. On a related note, it’s amazing how much information customers can convey simply by pointing at the menu and hand signaling. ---
**Author:** ![Crusoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/49beb7/32.png) [@Crusoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crusoe)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2000, 7:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/imagine-this-if-you-mcwill/37204/20 "2000-10-17T07:35:33Z")
It never occurred to me that this could be tricky until I started wondering about the plural of “passer-by”. (According to various papers, it’s “passers-by”) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/imagine-this-if-you-mcwill/37204.md?page=2)