To suggest it’s a uniquely British thing to pluralise company names?

[ApertureGLaDOS]

I actually may be unreasonable as I have no idea about what the rest of the world do, BUT…

… I was watching an episode of Food Theory on YouTube and he mentioned repeatedly, ‘Cadbury’. I found it so weird and jarring because it is known as ‘Cadbury’s’ to me. I suppose on reflection it makes sense because I think we are sold ‘Cadbury’s chocolate’ rather than just a product from Cadbury, but it sticks and I refer to it in that sense all the time (I don’t say Nestle’s or Mars’ for example).

And it’s not just that - I go to Tesco’s, not Tesco. And whilst I don’t say it myself I’ve heard friends shopping at ‘Lidl’s’ and even Asda’s.

So is it a British thing or is pluralising companies in common usage a thing done world over?

It's not a plural! I will say no more ...

Why does it matter?

Yeah and it’s not even a plural

Sorry yes, no a plural but an ownership (though I’m sure I’ll get another ten pages of that!). Sorry!

It's also a British thing to use apostrophes to pluralise words.

Because I was interested? Are things not allowed to be interesting without agenda anymore?

Well I suppose it could be Tesco's supermarket shortened to Tesco's.

I always call it sainsburys without a ' and Tescos without an '. Its Asdal though not Asda's.

Cadbury did used to be called Cadbury’s. So that one is maybe an outlier, but we definitely have this thing in the U.K. of adding S where it’s not present. tescos. Asdas. I don’t know why!

I say Tescoses because it winds my kids up.

The older generation of my family don’t pluralise shop names but add a ‘The’ as a prefix, The Asda, The Sainsbury etc.

No, it’s not.

A lot of them imply ownership as they started as family businesses. Even where they weren't family businesses some people add the s mistakenly believing they were. It only happens in very specific cases though and not as a widespread rule.

For those not well acquainted with the rules of the English language.

See I think if that was true, wouldn’t Morrisons’ Supermarket become Morrisons’?

I’ve also never noticed anyone ever call it Aldi’s but I have Lidl’s so I don’t know exactly why it’s different (a vowel at the end, perhaps)?

But my curiosity is about whether this is a uniquely British thing to do or if other places do it. I don’t think Americans do on the whole but it is interesting.

Nestle did used to be plural when everyone called it Nessles (old) and Sainsbury's is short for Sainsbury's Supermarkets but adding a random s (and apostrophe) is odd.

Marks and Spencers.. no s but I can’t say Spencer, I can’t stop my mouth.

You should have known this would bring the pedants out of their hovel corner though.

My ILs, who are Irish, used to talk about Wickes’s - the hardware store. I always used to wonder what that was about - it’s Wickes, right?!

YANBU.

We don’t do that here (not in the UK/Ireland).

That makes sense for Cadbury’s then. I always thought it was a possessive but thought it was just something we do for some reason.

But yes, I do think it’s something Brits do (I am also a born/bred Brit so not a criticism). I don’t really know why we do it though and wondered if other nations do the same.

Believe me, it is not a British thing.

It’s an English language-speaker thing, amongst a cohort who don’t know any better.

Haha. My sister and I argue all the time whether it’s The Co-op or just Co-op 😂

Ahh yes I have a "The"-er in my family.

Most people call Wetherspoon pubs
Wetherspoons.

I don’t think they do. It’s very odd really

When I started working in M&S it was an unofficial part of induction that the company was Marks and Spencer NO S.

This drives me batty. Very common where I’m from - NW region.