Is this just a regional thing? Most company or store names that sound like they could conceivably be based off of a last name are given the possessive. It’s not “I’m going to Kroger to get some pop” (and yes, I picked the regionalism ‘pop’ to set some people’s teeth on edge ;)), it’s “I’m going to Kroger’s to get some pop.”
Just like how I shop at Meijer’s, not Meijer. And (this one is a bit less common, but still heard a lot) my old boss would say, “Yeah, I worked at Ford’s”, not “Yeah, I worked at Ford”.
But I wouldn’t say “I’m going to Wal-Mart’s” because I’ve never heard of someone with the last name of Wal-Mart. The same deal with Target, Best Buy, Media Play, etc. But if it sounds like a last name, it’s always possessive. If I think about why, I guess it’s because I imagine someone actually owning it, like “Smith’s Meat Market” that I go to occasionally. The fact it’s a huge corporation doesn’t seem to change things.
Hell, even the workers at the Kroger’s around here will change printed (non-permanent display) signs to read “Kroger’s” instead of “Kroger”.
This is one of my pet peeves, and quite possibly a regional thing as well.
I work for Ford, I shop at Meijer, but yeah I often throw the 's on Kroger’s too, even though I don’t want to! I’m blaming that one on hearing it said that way while I was growing up.
It drives me crazy. Meijer’s, Kroger’s, etc… Read the sign, people! Thank goodness in the town where I grew up, the major supermarket chain was called Pay Less. Nobody ever said they were going to Pay Less’s.
A high school boyfriend worked at a home-improvement store/lumberyard called Furrow. Every single person in town called it Furrow’s.
Thought it was regional, until I moved east. Now my SO talks about going to Kmarts. (And he is only referring to one store.)
Oooh, yes, I do this and it drives my friend J up a wall! I go to Belk’s and Kroger’s and even Blockbuster’s, but I go to the Wal-Mart. (Well, I try not to, but if I need it after midnight and it’s not available at Kroger’s, sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do.)
And indeed, the use of “pop” made the hair on the back of my neck stand up in fury.
Referring to retail business and restaurant names in the possessive is the norm for Buffalo English. K-Mart’s, Wal-Mart’s, Home Depot’s, Olive Garden’s, Rite Aid’s, Eckerd’s, Blockbuster’s, Burger King’s, and so on.
My thoery: there are relatively few national businesses in Buffalo compared to other American cities. The majority of local business names are in the possessive case, so when a national business without a possessive name opens, locals resort to old habits. Buffalonians tend to be sticks-in-the-mud when it comes to language (among most other things); they’re notorious for using the names of businesses that disappeared 30 or 40 years ago in describing a place or giving directions.
I seldom heard what some Buffalonians call “possessification” in other cities where I’ve lived; Denver, Las Cruces, and Orlando.
That’s funny, I don’t think I’ve ever noticed this phenomenon. I grew up in a city where there were, pretty much, 4 major grocery store chains; Kroger, National, Schnucks & Dierbergs – and they were all referred to by those names, no added or deleted “s” sounds at the end, at least that I can remember hearing.
Where I live now, all the stores I can think of are that way; Ralphs, Trader Joe’s, Gelson’s, Bristol Farms & Albertsons.
Weird. Might bug me too, if I heard someone muck it up.
I should also make it clear that many Buffalonians, especially those of blue collar and strong white ethnic backgrounds, possessify EVERYTHING, including businesses with names that don’t sound like it would be an owner’s last name. Thus, you’ll hear Red Lobster’s, Fleet’s Bank, Charter One’s, Pier One’s, Mighty Taco’s, and Mobil’s. When they visit relatives out-of-town (who all seem to live in Charlotte), they fly on American’s, United’s, ATA’s, Continental’s, or Southwest’s. It’s not easy to say “Southwest’s,” but somehow Buffalonians manage to do it.
Some local businesses just give up, and change their names, or at least possessify when they advertise. I remember one restaurant, Dakota Grill, that after a few months started advertising as “Dakota’s,” because that’s what everybody else called it.
I call it “The Kroge,” pronounced “krohg.” Not so unusual. A number of locals, myself included, also shorten the name of a competitor chain, “Piggly Wiggly” to “The Pig.”
What is a little funny is that in my town, there is an “arts center” named the “Koger Center,” after one of the local university’s benefactors. I’ve heard many people refer to it as the “Kroger Center.”
I don’t think I’ve heard that around here (the Mid-Atlantic). People just say Safeway, Superfresh or Mars (which is already plural). We do have a grocery store called Giant, though, and I always hear people add “the” to it, saying they shop at “The Giant.” No one ever says The Safeway or The Superfresh.
Everyone I know in Michigan says it, even to the extent of saying “K-Marts”!
The explanation I’ve always heard is the same one that’s on michigannative.com’s “Michigan Accent Pronunciation Guide”:
"COMPANY NAMES AS POSSESSIVES: In the early 1900’s, the Ford Motor Company’s sole factory was known by people all over Michigan as “Ford’s Factory”, since it was owned by Henry Ford. Like a virus, this wacky mispronunciation spread to any large shrine of industry or commerce. “Where do you work?” “Oh, I work at Ford’s.” “I see, and evidently you were schooled in Ohio.”
So “Meijer” became “Meijers”, “Kroger” became “Krogers”, and inexplicably, “K-Mart” became “K-Marts”! For the record, folks… there is no family by the name of “K-Mart” that owns that chain."
So let’s all go to K-Marts 'n pick some Faygo.
In the western PA town where I grew up, there was a now-defunct department store called Glosser Brothers. Everyone called it Glosser’s, which I had no problem with since it, after all, belonged to the Glossers. Sometime in the '60s, the same family opened a discount store called Gee Bee. Sure enough, everyone called it Gee Bee’s. Hearing this constantly finally drove me to move to France. Well, there were other reasons.
Two that I hear a lot which bug the crap out of me:
Barnes and Nobles
Williams & Sonoma
Aaargh! It’s Barnes and Noble, and Williams Sonoma (mebbe with a hyphen?).
One that used to bug me to no end was one of my friends who always pronounced the name of a local produce/garden market as:
Wilson’s Farm. CLEARLY it was really called Wilson Farms, and I used to have to use all the willpower I could muster not to roll my eyes at her or heave a big irritated sigh.
Until the day I was shopping there and noticed that they have 4 different ways of writing their store’s name. The bags said one thing, the cheese shop labels said another thing, the sign out front said another, and the recipe cards at the register said something else. Variously, they were calling themselves Wilson Farms, Wilson’s Farm, Wilson’s Farms AND Wilson Farm. I realized that if they couldn’t make up their minds, I’d have to give up being a stickler for calling them “Wilson Farms.”
Hm. This might be a good theory. Even though the metro Detroit area has a lot of chains now (and has for a long time), there are still a lot of smaller businesses: Bruno’s Appliances, Smith’s Meat Market, Richard’s Automotive, George’s Auto Parts, Steve’s Cake and Cookie Cupboard (and those are just a few off the top of my head, within biking distance if I wanted to go).
And I realised that I didn’t quite accurately tell my pronunciation ‘rules’ in the OP. :o I said I’d never say “Target’s” or “Wal-Mart’s” because they’re not last names, but then I’m reading others’ posts and realising that I do say “Barnes and Noble’s”, “K-Mart’s”, and honest to GOD I thought it was “Blockbuster’s”. I guess I have weird brain logic for when I mispronounce business names.
There’s not a lot of that here, but one Japanese steakhouse always brings it out. Folks always say, “We went to Benihana’s,” as if it were Benny Hana’s.
I make store names possessive as well, entirely unconsciously. (I’m from upstate New York, but not Buffalo, in case we’re still taking demographics on it.) Kmart’s, Kroger’s, Albertson’s, Blockbuster’s… I don’t have any idea whether any of those actually ARE possessive, but that’s how I say them. I don’t say Walmart’s, though. It’s just Walmart. Also, it’s not Chik-fil-A’s, it’s just Chik-fil-A. JC Penney’s gets the possessive, but I don’t say Sears’s.
Hee! I’m thinking the possessive is common enough, because I tried www.jcpennys.com (for the company JC Penny, no possessive in their name) and it redirects right to the main site. The same deal went for www.spiegels.com (for Spiegel, again no apostrophe).
