Cool site. I just spent the last half hour going down the list, reading the words aloud and nodding “Yup. I still say it that way, even in Jersey.”
People around here (SE US) do both all the time, as in “I’m goin down to the Wal Mart’s and get a coke. Y’ont one? What kind? Dite Pepsi? A’ite”. Not everybody, mind you. But in certain dialects it seems standard.
I think CocaCola has given up on trying to get people to stop calling all soft drinks “cokes” down here.
Very frequently seen around here in southern NJ. Strangely enough, stores like Home Depot and Best Buy which are singular become possessive, but stores that are already possessive (Kohl’s, McDonalds) become singular (“I’m going to Best Buy’s. You want anything from McDonald while I’m gone?”) 
So annoying.
There is no “s” at the end of Nordstrom.
Read the sign, the bags, the credit cards. It ends in an “m.”
When people put the “s” there, it makes me wonder about them.
Most other stores seem to be correctly identified. (Including the other major department store…)
What if you’re referring to a store that already has an apostrophe - s on it? Like Kohl’s. Would the possessive be Kohl’s’s?
I go to Ralph’s, Von’s and Pavilions. The last one is Von’s upscale version, and the don’t have the apostrophe in the name. So I don’t pronounce it. 
If I went to WalMart, which I don’t, I would just say "WalMart". Not “the WalMart" and not "WalMarts”. In short, I think I simply tend to say the name of the place the way the owners present it.
Nope, haven’t heard people here do that one, either. Saying Nordstrom**'s** actually seems harder. It really takes an effort to pronouce that “s.”
I have heard Barnes and Nobles. I was in the mall once, and heard a woman tell her companion she wanted to go to “Crates and Barrels.” :rolleyes:
Adding an S where it doesn’t exist really drives me batshit. When I worked at OfficeMax (not OfficeMax’s) customers often came in needing supplies for printers, fax machines, and typewriters (yes, people still use them, at least they did three years ago when I left). For some reason, nearly half of the people who owned a Brother product would ask for a “Brother’s” cartridge. I just wanted to slam my head against the wall abourt a dozen times after hearing people saying this all day.
I don’t know if the chain exists anymore, but it was either
Woolworth’s
or
Woolsworth
depending on what region you lived in.
In VA, where I grew up, we went to “Woolsworth”
F.W. Woolworth Co. closed the last of its 400 five-and-10-cent stores in 1997. However, Woolworth the company, as opposed to Woolworth the chain, kept going - the company owned a number of other retail businesses, such as Foot Locker and Champs sporting goods. Woolworth changed its name to Venator in 1997 and again to Foot Locker Inc. in 2001.
Woolworths Group Plc is a U.K. business whose roots go back to 1909, when the American company set up a British unit. Woolworths Ltd. is an Australian company with no relation to the U.S. or U.K. businesses that was set up in 1924 - the founder was going to call it Wallworths Bazaar as a play on the better-known name but found that “Woolworths” was available for registraton in New South Wales and used it. There’s also a Woolworths Holdings Ltd. in South Africa, I don’t know the story on that one.
ColonelDax, business and financial history geek
There used to be a restaurant here in Wenatchee, WA called “The Sodbuster”. Of course, everybody called it “Sodbuster’s” - even the employees.
Of course, there is also a nearby town called Leavenworth, and there is a segment of our local population that pronounces it “Leavensworth”. I don’t know why. There’s no “s” in there. Perhaps one clue is that just about everybody who says “Leavensworth” has at least a trace of a Southern drawl.
When you lived here, did you hear some of the rednecks Ames*'s***? I’m originally from Northern NY, so that might be a regional thing. That drove me nuts. Thank god the company went out of business!
The only business I add a possessive to is JC Penney, except I drop the JC and just call it Penney’s. That may also be a regional thing, though.
::sigh:: That should read…
MissGypsy, are you from Indiana? Where I live we had a Furrow’s and still have a Meijer’s, Penney’s (minus the J.C.), and another supermarket, Marsh’s.
I drink either pop or coke, and I get my money from a MoneyMover, not an ATM.
(Oh, and Payless is now owned by Kroger’s.)
Perhaps a slightly more irritating peeve is the use of business names in Russian English, at least in the form I’ve encountered online. In Russian English, somebody might spend their day shopping at "store <<Home Depot>> ", and then eating at "restaurant <<Red Lobster>> " before heading to "theater <<AMC>> " and then home driving a "Honda ‘Accord.’ " All business and product names are in quotes, with greater than or less than signs used as quotation marks, for some reason.
Now there’s three words that don’t usually appear in the same sentence. For me, more like “Bleaaaggh…Mighty Taco.”
Getting back to the subject at hand, there’s one anomaly to the upstate New York possessive rule: Wegmans Markets. Not Wegman’s, nor Wegmans’. The founder, mind, was a Mr. Wegman.
I grew up in Philly.
It was " going over to the Pantry Pride". Not Pantry Pride’s.
It was " We’re running to the A&P “. Not " A&P’s”
I went to the Pathmark, not Pathmark’s.
Might be a Philly grammar evil, but we didn’t use the apostrophe-s on the end much…
Cartooniverse’s
