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	bienegold 2012-01-14 01:06 am UTC (link)
	That's stupid. On the other hand, I do come from an area where any business name automatically gets turned into a possessive, so. (I don't think I realized that it wasn't Meijer's and Kroger's until I was a pre-teen.) (Reply to this)(Thread)

	harrylovesron 2012-01-14 07:16 pm UTC (link)
	Hahaha, same here. Clearly we just love apostophes that much. Oooooh, apostrophes... '''''''' look at them. (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	bienegold 2012-01-14 07:40 pm UTC (link)
	I love when people say they're going to Kmart's. (Reply to this)(Parent)

	ekaterinv 2012-01-14 10:19 pm UTC (link)
	I still can't say Meijer or Kroger. I just... can't. Where I live now, the big grocery store is Publix. I think they chose the name to stop all the northern-Midwesterners here from making it a possessive. (I have heard people say Winn-Dixie's, however.) (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

keri
2012-01-15 05:26 pm UTC (link)

Publix is the best <3

But we have Winn-Dixie's and Food Lion's and WalMart's and it's not just that, but "the WalMart's" and "the Eckerd's" (before they switched to CVS in the region).

I always thought it was a rural South thing, dating back to when these kinds of shops were named after the owner. I don't recall Target ever getting a possessive, though it did get "the". (Noting that the person who most commonly spoke like this around me died a year ago, but she was from rural Georgia.)

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	keri 2012-01-15 05:29 pm UTC (link)
	Oh, I forgot one that's a different type of store: "Barnes & Noble's". I was embarrassingly old before I learned that there's no possessive on the name. I still have trouble with a local bookshop - it's "Chamblin Bookmine" or "Chamblin Uptown", for the two locations, but I can't use anything but "Chamblin's". (Reply to this)(Parent)

	eilisliana 2012-01-16 05:35 am UTC (link)
	I hear the Walmart/the Hilanders but not Walmart's. Guess it's a central northern Illinois quirk. (Reply to this)(Parent)

	kalloway 2012-01-14 11:55 pm UTC (link)
	And... before leaving work last night, I called home to see if my mother needed 'anything from Meijer's.' I've honestly never thought about it before. (Though I suppose I could have said 'Meijers' - I pass three.) (Reply to this)(Parent)

insanitys_place
2012-01-15 12:44 am UTC (link)

Same with Russ', except for the part where that actually is the name of the restaurant chain. I remember watching one of my linguistic professors losing his shit over the apostrophe at the end of Russ'. It was entertaining, but I'm still not sure what it had to do with the lesson that day. Then again, his rants were always entertaining, but they rarely had anything to do with the lessons.

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	risha 2012-01-15 12:59 am UTC (link)
	...what was his issue with it? He have something against guys named Russ owning restaurants? (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	chibikaijuu 2012-01-15 04:11 am UTC (link)
	If it's not a plural, it gets a goddamn s, no matter how awkward. The correct possessive is "Russ's". (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	risha 2012-01-15 05:19 am UTC (link)
	Apparently I was asleep that day in elementary school. :( Life is but an opportunity for daily learning, I suppose. In this case, though, I have to believe that Russ' did the righteous thing in throwing off the shackles of grammar. "Russ's" is a hideous construction. (Reply to this)(Parent)

	ekaterinv 2012-01-15 06:47 am UTC (link)
	Not necessarily so: http://www.englishrules.com/writing/2005/possessive-form-of-singular-nouns-ending-with-s/ This is one of the many "rules" of English grammar that is up to personal preference. (Reply to this)(Parent)

	insanitys_place 2012-01-15 04:08 pm UTC (link)
	Funny enough this was the full of his rant. Such rants were generally concluded with, "WHY CAN'T YOU AMERICANS SPEAK YOUR OWN LANGUAGE? I learned British English as a second language and that's the only acceptable English out there. ~~Damn Americans~~." (Reply to this)(Parent)

	jira 2012-01-15 08:13 am UTC (link)
	Do you live in Illinois or around there? I know it's definitely an Illinois thing. (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	ekaterinv 2012-01-16 04:03 am UTC (link)
	It's definitely a Michigan thing too. I'd bet people in Wisconsin and northern Ohio do it as well. (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	jira 2012-01-16 04:15 am UTC (link)
	Good point, a Mid-western thing for sure. I just remember laughing so hard when I found out I did it. I was like "Jewels? That's not normal!?" (Reply to this)(Parent)

	full_metal_ox 2012-01-17 10:25 pm UTC (link)
	It's definitely a Michigan thing too. I'd bet people in Wisconsin and northern Ohio do it as well. And not just northern Ohio--Daytonians and Cincinnatians routinely shop at Kroger's* and Meijer's. *And then you get the handful of arch wiseacres--the same sort who patronize Tarjay and Skullini's Chili--who refer to the gentrified Kroger superstores as Krojair's. (Reply to this)(Parent)

	eilisliana 2012-01-16 05:31 am UTC (link)
	Not in central northern Illinois. (Reply to this)(Parent)

	fern_on_fen 2012-01-15 09:03 pm UTC (link)
	It...Kroger isn't possessive? Shit. I'm 22 and this JUST dawned on me. (Reply to this)(Parent)

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