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?

Exactly right. I live in the US and we don't do it here.

How do you leave out the apostrophe in conversation?

Where I live (East of England) I've definitely heard people call John Lewis 'Lewis's'!

No! That is just totally incorrect. The apostrophe denotes possession, not plurality.

For example Sainsbury's belonged to the Sainsbury family. Cadbury's belonged to the Cadbury family.

It can also indicate omitted letters, such as the word "don't" (a contraction of "do not"), or "can't" (a contraction of "cannot").

I'd guess it's not "unique" but dependent on the way the language is structured as well as the way language gets used colloquially. As people have pointed out (or tried to) the apostrophe is to do with possession in the case of taking about the supermarkets.

Are these John's shoes?
I said, are these John's!?
Has he already gone down to Tesco's supermarket?
I said, has he already gone to Tesco's!?

In English we say
Is this John's bike?

But in Spanish we say
¿Es esta la bici de Juan?
(Is this the bike of Juan?)

The grammar or syntax is different in English and Spanish.

I'll guess that the romance languages (derived from Latin) French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, and Romanian are similarly structured and different to English but I'd guess, though I don't know for sure, that there will be other languages that use the apostrophe to denote possession.

I live in Ohio and people absolutely do it here.

Really? Like Walmarts and Targets?

@Anonymous48 Walgreens? Founded by Mr Walgreen
Macy's?

Surely it’s a possessive rather than a plural i.e. Sainsbury’s supermarket (and Sainsbury’s is in fact called Sainsbury’s no Sainsbury!)

But Walgreens and Macy's are the names of these companies. That's not what is being discussed here. It's people adding an S to the end of store names when they shouldn't be there.

Yes, my question was of the addition of the ‘s on store names by customers rather than the store itself.

Also interesting about Ireland doing it (as someone said before). Maybe a British Isles thing more so than a British thing?

Anyway, just something I found fascinating. I think all languages are fascinating for their little quirks but I’m ever more interested in strange colloquialisms and where they originate from. I think some people have it right that there’s an applied assumption that we are talking about ‘Mr Tesco’s store’ even if it isn’t that at all. I quite like it, though. Even if it’s bizarre.