# Why did Pringle's drop the apostrophe?? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [January 15, 2015, 7:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-pringles-drop-the-apostrophe/709919 "2015-01-15T19:20:58Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Tim\_R.Mortiss](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tim_r.mortiss/32/142_2.png) [@Tim\_R.Mortiss](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tim_R.Mortiss)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2015, 12:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-pringles-drop-the-apostrophe/709919/21 "2015-01-16T00:09:08Z")
Related question: Why does Lands’ End have its apostrophe where it does? Answer is at [this](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lands%27_End) page. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Second\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bbe5ce/32.png) [@The\_Second\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Second_Stone)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2015, 12:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-pringles-drop-the-apostrophe/709919/22 "2015-01-16T00:40:10Z")
> [@Tim\_R.Mortiss](#): > > Related question: Why does Lands’ End have its apostrophe where it does? > > Answer is at [this](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lands%27_End) page. You think that is funny. There is a town in Iowa named after Johannes Gutenberg. [Guttenberg, Iowa - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guttenberg,_Iowa) ---
**Author:** ![actualliberalnotoneofthose](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e79b87/32.png) [@actualliberalnotoneofthose](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/actualliberalnotoneofthose)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2015, 1:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-pringles-drop-the-apostrophe/709919/23 "2015-01-16T01:35:07Z")
> [@pulykamell](#): > > That’s pretty much any snack food, though. It doesn’t really much matter that it’s not all potato. That wouldn’t make it particularly healthier or anything. Potatoes are pretty healthy, and I’d feel confident assuming much healthier than whatever the other 58% is. ---
**Author:** ![Labrador\_Deceiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7c8e57/32.png) [@Labrador\_Deceiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Labrador_Deceiver)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2015, 1:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-pringles-drop-the-apostrophe/709919/24 "2015-01-16T01:41:32Z")
> [@actualliberalnotoneofthose](#): > > Potatoes are pretty healthy, and I’d feel confident assuming much healthier than whatever the other 58% is. Wheat, corn & rice. ---
**Author:** ![actualliberalnotoneofthose](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e79b87/32.png) [@actualliberalnotoneofthose](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/actualliberalnotoneofthose)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2015, 1:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-pringles-drop-the-apostrophe/709919/25 "2015-01-16T01:45:05Z")
> [@Labrador\_Deceiver](#): > > Wheat, corn & rice. I would personally take potatoes over all of those, but Ii guess YMMV. ---
**Author:** ![Labrador\_Deceiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7c8e57/32.png) [@Labrador\_Deceiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Labrador_Deceiver)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2015, 1:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-pringles-drop-the-apostrophe/709919/26 "2015-01-16T01:49:25Z")
> [@actualliberalnotoneofthose](#): > > I would personally take potatoes over all of those, but Ii guess YMMV. I personally don’t care one way or the other. ---
**Author:** ![Frylock](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ce7236/32.png) [@Frylock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frylock)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2015, 2:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-pringles-drop-the-apostrophe/709919/27 "2015-01-16T02:09:27Z")
> [@actualliberalnotoneofthose](#): > > Potatoes are pretty healthy, I mean, they can be part of a healthy diet, but it seems strange to call them “pretty healthy.” They’re just, basically, balls of carbohydrate. Pretty calorie dense too. I am not sure I’ve ever encountered a healthy eating plan that allowed for any significant amount of potato. ---
**Author:** ![gigi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a587f6/32.png) [@gigi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gigi)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2015, 3:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-pringles-drop-the-apostrophe/709919/28 "2015-01-16T03:26:28Z")
> [@Kimballkid](#): > > They are no longer called potato chips, they are potato **crisps** , basically mushed up potato dough. I’m guessing that’s also when they dropped the apostrophe. Then if chips are crisps in England, what are Pringles in England? ---
**Author:** ![Amateur\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/59ef9b/32.png) [@Amateur\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amateur_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2015, 4:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-pringles-drop-the-apostrophe/709919/29 "2015-01-16T04:06:44Z")
> [@gigi](#): > > Then if chips are crisps in England, what are Pringles in England? Lord of the manor. ---
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2015, 3:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-pringles-drop-the-apostrophe/709919/30 "2015-01-16T15:11:59Z")
> [@Ike\_Witt](#): > > I have been told that the name comes from a Pringle street in Cincinnati. The [Wikipedia article](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pringles) gives that as one of several possible origins. > [@](#): > > There are several theories behind the origin of the name “Pringles”. One theory refers to Mark Pringle, who filed a US Patent 2,286,644 titled “Method and Apparatus for Processing Potatoes” on 5 March 1937. Pringle’s work was cited by Procter & Gamble (P&G) in filing their own patent for improving the taste of dehydrated processed potatoes. Another theory suggested two Procter advertising employees lived on Pringle Drive in Finneytown (north of Cincinnati, Ohio), and the name paired well with potato. Another reference says that P&G chose the Pringles name from a Cincinnati telephone book. > [@Kimballkid](#): > > They are no longer called potato chips, they are potato **crisps** , basically mushed up potato dough. I’m guessing that’s also when they dropped the apostrophe. It also addresses this. > [@](#): > > They were originally known as “Pringles Newfangled Potato Chips”, but other snack manufacturers objected, saying Pringles failed to meet the definition of a potato “chip”. The US Food and Drug Administration weighed in on the matter, and in 1975, they ruled Pringles could only use the word “chip” in their product name within the following phrase: “potato chips made from dried potatoes”. Faced with such an unpalatable appellation, Pringles eventually opted to rename their product potato “crisps” instead of chips. This later led to other issues in the United Kingdom, where the term potato “crisps” refers to the product Americans call potato “chips”. Another thing I learned from the Wikipedia article is that SF author Gene Wolfe developed the machine that cooks them. ---
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2015, 3:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-pringles-drop-the-apostrophe/709919/31 "2015-01-16T15:16:49Z")
> [@hajario](#): > > The chips themselves are called Pringles so one of them is a Pringle. They aren’t meant to be chips owned by or made by someone names Pringle. I had thought that the “Pringle’s” in the name of the product (“Pringle’s New-fangled Potato Chips”) played the same role as, say, “Reese’s” in “Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups.” Abbreviating this to “Pringle’s” made it sound like that was a plural noun, with the singular being “Pringle,” as if people started calling an individual peanut butter cup a “Reese.” (The company’s ad campaign, “There’s no wrong way to eat a Reese’s,” may have played some role in discouraging this from happening.) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-pringles-drop-the-apostrophe/709919.md?page=1)