Who is Uncle Ben and Aunt Jemima?

Well recall that there aren’t that many commercial products that place a named human figure on their package, except as a temporary promotion. I don’t know a lot about the appearance of Duncan Hines, Mrs. Fields or Dr. Pepper. I do have a grasp of Mr. Clean (who I think is suppose to be a genie), Uncle Ben, Aunt Jemima and Col Sanders.

The use of general honorifics, especially the masculine, is rare these days anyway, as I pointed out earlier. Even Mr. Gatti’s Pizza is now just Gatti’s Pizza, apparently.

Unfortunately, I managed to miss the second part of JWK’s question entirely (“a human figure who stands in relationship to the product…”). The aforementioned Mrs. Stewart’s Bluingis the only such product I can think of that’s still on the market.

That does not change the situation.

Yes.

I was going to mention Colonel Sanders, who is both real and fictional now that he died and they use that cartoon Colonel. But the product is not actually named after him, so it’s a murky case.

OP: Any thought of using a plural verb with a plural subject?

How did I get to this silly discussion?