But that’s just avoiding the question. Just because a structure is inelegant in a certain situation doesn’t mean that it doesn’t exist. And if it exists, then someone might want to use it, regardless of whether it’s considered sub-optimal. And if it exists, then there must be at least one answer to the question
The guidelines perpetuated by trademark owners are irrelevant to questions of English usage in all but limited trademark-relevant circumstances. What a trademark owner “officially” desires is of no interest or relevance to discussions of English usage. I say that as someone with 20-plus years of experience with intellectual property law.
So go ahead and say “Rolls-Royces” and “Legos” and “Mont Blancs” and “Kleenexes” and “Canons” and “Oreos” and “Tic Tacs” and “Adidases” if that what comes naturally to you.
And, please, capitalize them like normal words. Ignore logotype nonsense like “adidas” and “macy*s” and “Yahoo!” and “eBay.” It’s Adidas, Macy’s, Yahoo, and EBay for regular people. Language doesn’t belong to trademark owners.
Yes, trying to make a plural out of Arkansas is inelegant and hard to say, but it’s also incorrect, given that only one of the ships is called Arkansas.
Something being factually incorrect is irrelevant to grammar and usage. Grammar is syntactical, regardless of whether the syntax produces a meaningful or truthful result.
“The green spaces eat hot refrigeration.” It’s a grammatically correct statement.
It might be a counter-factual statement, or it might become factually correct in the future.
If one person starts calling Arkansas-class monitors “Arkansases,” and that is picked up by other people, then eventually the incorrectness may become correct. That’s language.
That is true, especially given that we’re talking about monitors, which is a type of warship named after a particular ship called the USS Monitor. So if that sort of thing ever happens to “Arkansas-class monitors”, we’ll have to adapt. I still argue, though, that the inelegance of a plural form of Arkansas is a big reason why we’ll never do that. (There’s also the fact that there was only ever four ships of the type.)
That raises (not begs) the question, Why have more than one Arkansas? Why overload? Well, suppose there’s an east-west secessionist movement, with E.AR vs W.AR. Then we’d have two Arkansaws, for sure. But if they divorce, are they still siblings?
Arkansaw is official. “…the Arkansaw spelling is the one used on the Act that created the territory. But in the end, the original Arkansas spelling is the one that prevailed, but it did so with an Anglicized version of the French pronunciation.” (cite)
One Arkansas.
More Arkansaws.
Many Arkanzoids (Arkansas-like entities).
