In another thread I mentioned Kroger is often pronounced/spelled Krogers or Kroger’s. Both are incorrect. The correct pronunciation and spelling is simply Kroger.
What other proper nouns do people commonly but incorrectly pluralize? Or - when spelling it - incorrectly add ownership ('s)?
And how about things that are not proper nouns? I frequently see drivers license and driver’s license. The correct spelling, however, is driver license.
It’s either a driving licence or a driver’s licence. Not driver licence (or drivers licence)…
And perhaps it various by state/country. Mine says driver license.
It’s common with store names, likely because so many do have that S at the end. I’ve heard “Walmarts” (or “Walmarks”), Cato’s, Aldi’s, and so on.
There’s also the perennial “Daylight Savings Time” or “Daylight Saving’s Time.” And there’s disagreement on whether it is New Year or New Year’s.
I personally keep writing it’s instead of its when referring to a quality possessed by an object e.g. Look at that house, it’s roof is red. I’m getting better just lately but it’s still a mistake I frequently make.
For me, it’s only a mistake I make because my phone seems to assume I want to add an apostrophe to short words. It will correct “its” to “it’s,” “ill” to “I’ll” and “were” to “we’re.” That last one is the oddest one, as I use “were” a lot more than I do “we’re.”
Down’s or Downs used for Down Syndrome.
Anyways. The one good thing I can say about a certain movie, the name of which I forget and have no interest in recollecting, is that the annoying, totally unsympathetic lead character turned-criminal with whom we were nevertheless supposed to sympathize (because their biographies about obscure individuals didn’t make as much money as some famous novelist’s… novels) made a point of correcting someone that it’s anyway, not anyways. And so I learned something.
In texts, I use “we’re” more often because I’m usually including my gf in texts.
I wish more people knew these are wrong.
And mine is a Führerschein. Sounds like permission to be the Führer, but isn’t.
German even has a name for those wrong apostrophe’s*: Deppenapostroph, literally idiot’s apostrophe. Some are very funny.
* Couldn’t avoid it, sorry.
In English, they’re grocers’ apostrophes.
@ASL_v2.0 You can pry “anyways” from my cold dead hands. 
I know it isn’t strictly proper, but I it sounds wrong to my ear when someone introduces or ends a sentence with “anyway.” I don’t quite know why, but I suspect it is dialectical. And I’ve stopped trying to remove bits of dialect from my speech to sound more “proper.” I already sound like I’m from a different state.
I do, however, make an exception for proper names, because I know how annoying it can be when people get those wrong.
Some other store names: The department store chain is correctly pronounced/spelled J.C. Penny (Actually they appear to have stylized it as JCPenny now). It’s not “Penny’s” or “Pennies”.
Likewise, the department store chain in the Southeast is Belk, not “Belk’s”. I myself have been guilty of turning that one into a possessive.
Just checked mine. Here in New York, it reads driver license.
“Soldiers Field” It’s “Soldier Field”.
I actually thought about that one when I was going through my list, but I forgot that the S wasn’t there.
Arby’s, Carl’s Jr., Domino’s Pizza, Hardee’s, Long John Silver’s, McDonald’s, Nando’s, Papa Gino’s, and Wendy’s are examples where the apostrophed s is the correct spelling.
So it appears to be an arbitrary choice whether a business owner names his business with a possessive apostrophe – many do, many don’t.
When the possessive apostrophe in included, it appears to be an elliptical form. Thus, e.g., “McDonald’s” is short for “McDonald’s restaurant”, etc.
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