you Americans need to think about your "LEGOs" problem

You really don’t want to go down this road. I have no problem starting a movement to get Americans to call them “LEGO’s” and you won’t be able to even suggest it’s wrong because it’ll just be a contraction of “LEGO parts,” “LEGO bricks,” and “LEGO sets.” (But feel free to lambast us over punctuation and quotation marks.)

This comment made me twitch involuntarily.

That isn't how contractions in English work – you can't form a contraction from two nouns.

https://dictionary.cambridge.org/grammar/british-grammar/con...

Quite right, what's needed here is a portmanteau - Legarts

I prefer Legricks. Dammit kids, pick up your legricks, I darn near killed myself!

How long do you thing that they will turn the already-plural "data" into the hyper-plural "datas"? Or has this already happened, I am too afraid to check.

Datases.

Nasty datases

Datums?

...and lets not get into the "paninis" situation.

Eh, devils advocate: when a word becomes more of a loan word than just a usage of its proper origin, doesn’t it make sense to follow the new languages patterns?

Different grammatical situation of course but similar in spirit is “latte.” It just means milk in Italian and so in Italy you’d always say cafe latte. But in the states everyone knows it as the coffee drink (Starbucks probably to blame).

Same with salsa—just means sauce in Spanish—but it’s become an English word in the states at this point and taken a different meaning.

Entree being another more egregious example…

Entree really is a particularly egregious example because it's meaning is different in different English speaking countries.

I've seen (older) German texts where "Jesus" is declined as in Latin, eg "the apostles Jesu" (=of Jesus, genitive) or "We saw Jesum" (=accusative). Somewhat jarring. As you say - when do you stop?

Data is a mass/uncountable noun now (like meat) rather than a countable noun (like coin/coins). Turning it countable involves a helper noun like data point / data points.

"Datum?" Almost nobody uses that in the vernacular.

I have seen it used in more than one software project and I know IT/Software people (including myself) who use it.

Datae

Data /is/ plural. One datum, set of data.

Exactly my point

Imagine that, language and grammar changes from country to country. We must alert the king! Light the fires of Gondor!

LEGOs makes sense; a LEGO is an indivisible entity, of which you can have a certain number. Calling the material simply LEGO makes it sound like an undifferentiated mass, like sludge, or cheese.

Related: is the price map of McDonald's then McDonald's's price map?

Companies often have press guides or branding guides that clarify this. For Macca, an old guide covers this (Trademark Usage / Page 3).

https://issuu.com/lukaszkulakowski/docs/002725

IIUC, that seems to be saying "don't write sentences in this structure" rather than "here's how it would look if you did write it". (Though it would seem strange for a manual to dictate the grammar for its own name.)

Following the example of Big Mac sandwiches (not Big Macs) I believe you'd write McDonald's restaurants' (not McDonald's'). I.E. always keep the trademarked word as-is, add sandwich or other nouns where needed to make the grammar work.

I think the confusion in this thread and elsewhere makes it clear why companies release brand guides.

Yeah, but companies don't get to decide how language is used. Apple can try all they want to demand that people say shit like "Use iPad to do it" or "Experience iPad" but that's just what they want and they can't stop people using English without their toxic marketing BS. Saying "Use an iPad to do it" is completely acceptable language and more in line with existing language no-matter what Apple marketing says.

Why not McDonald’s’

Because it didn't occur to me that might be a possibility :-) is that what it would be?

It is a regular, but not universal, occurrence for people to elide the extra possessive 's when the word already ends in s.

For example, although adding a possessive suffix 's to the nane "Jordan" would result in "Jordan's," adding it to "James" could result in "James'". There's an apostrophe written at the end, but it's pronounced the same way as "James."

I said it's not universal because I still know people who would say "James's" (with an extra syllable at the end) in everyday speech anyway. I don't know to what extent this varies by dialect.

It's also elided when a plural already ends in s (and I think this is universal, but I haven't looked it up). For example, "the doctor's computer" (the computer of one doctor) sounds the same as "the doctors' computers" (the computers owned by the doctors). The apostrophe is written on the other side of the s, but it also sounds the same. Note that not all plurals end in s, e.g. man/men, woman/women, goose/geese, etc., and in these cases you still add the s, e.g. "the geese's beaks".

James’ = AP style James’s = Chicago Style

https://grammarbrain.com/james-or-jamess/

McDonald'ses. :D

Or just omit "the" - We have many McDonald's here in our town.

McDonalds'

Baker's dozen -> Bakers' dozen

baker's dozens

McDonalds'

If anything it should be Al'sdi (Albrecht's Discount)

To continue this nitpick: it's "Albrecht Diskont" (no genetive), so it should be AlDi or ALDI (the latter is the spelling used officially by Aldi).

When I was a child in the 90ies, older people still called Aldi "Albrecht" (and the middle class avoided going there for fear of being marked poor):

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/04/Albrecht...

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/13/Aldi-Kal...

https://www.lebensmittelzeitung.net/news/media/7/The-Albre-b...

Interesting side note: Aldi is not called Aldi in Austria (it's "Hofer" there, which blew my mind as a kid since the logo is the same), because the Aldi trademark belonged to "Adel Lebensmittel Diskont" there.

People still avoid Aldi in the Netherlands if they want to keep up appearances. Lidl seems to suffer from this stigma a lot less.

That's interesting, because the customers at Aldi here in Germany are basically a cross-section of the population, but tend to be middle/higher middle class. Especially after the update to most of their shops during the last 7-8 years [0], most Aldis look really nice inside. This combined with the huge advantage that shopping at Aldi is really efficient (the stores are not large, for most items, you have only a single option to select from which usually has an excellent quality, and the cashiers are arguably the fastest in the industry) makes Aldi very attractive for people who could easily afford shopping at a non-discounter. Sure, I enjoy the occasional hour-long visit to a large supermarket with the family on a weekend, but after work? I want my shopping done in 10 minutes max without selecting from 30 brands of pasta and go home.

At least in larger cities, the average Lidl often looks a bit run-down and grimy, and the customers tend to be lower class (that's not the case in rural areas, however). I always found that interesting, because prices / quality are basically equivalent (although I tend to prefer Aldi products). I live near the border to France, and the situation there appears to be similar.

At least a few years ago, however, Aldis in Switzerland also looked very run-down (though not as run-down as Denner) with distinctly lower-class customers and a much larger focus on selling alcohol than in Germany.

[0] https://www.augsburger-allgemeine.de/wirtschaft/Bilderstreck...

Dutch here, worked a few years in Germany. I can attest to the difference in esteem of the Aldi/Lidl in de and nl. But you already agree: German shops just look run down as a matter of course. Rewe and Edeka the least probably?

However (I've lived some years in FR and PL too), nothing beats Dutch supermarkets in terms of shopping-speed. Nowhere. If you think (German) Aldi is fast, you should try a Dutch shop (preferably in the city around rush hour so you can see it shines under pressure). As a low anchor, you can try the same in France (any brand, but Lidl too) ;) This includes stock: Dutch supermarkets are rarely out of something, but in Germany this is par for the course (or I am extremely unlucky?)

Also, and this is actually quite true for the Netherlands as well, there is a quality problem. It can be good, but it rarely is great. The French (and Belgians) really have that beat, at the cost of speed. Only fresh veg and bread is where Lidl shines, and I love them for it.

Bread?! Lidl?! Aharrharrhaarrgh. (cough, spit...)

From a Dutch perspective :) You should see what foam they consider bread. One of the things I miss from France :) Lidl has a batard that is really quite good, unsurpassed by any Dutch bread.

Can't have anything from them which is (re)baked in store. Makes my nose run, and throat slimy, sometimes even constricting.

I've given up on them. And almost anything else too. Because that is a function of modern bakery supply chains in general, not one specific 'outlet'.

You haven't had bad bread if you've never had Dutch bread. That includes virtually any 'bakery' (those are mostly chains who also rebake). Dutch bread is barely baked, and barely bread. Really, moulding shite and baking it is superior.

Do not get in a bad-bread-pissing contest: Dutch will win it every time.

Try having some stuff in the US that passes for bread. You'd long for the Aldi back home!

I disagree to both to the single option to select from, and the excellent quality. For Aldi-North that is. Sampling for about 2 to 3 times a year there, since about 2014. Before that I lived there.

Hm. Been at the Aldi-Äquator in the 90ies, which is the division between Aldi-North and South in Germany. So one could pick 'branches' from the overlap there, and compare. Which was really different at the time.

Anyway, I remember the talks about that fear of being marked poor. It was all a load of BS as you could see from the parked cars, and style of clothing of shoppers.

Similar to BILD.de perceived as trash-tabloid, nonetheless having the largest circulation.

Bild is trash tho...

Yah. No objection there.

Mom shopped at Aldi but didn’t mention it to Dad

Edited :)

Actually it's 'Aldis', because we're talking about more than one.

> Actually it's 'Aldis', because we're talking about more than one.

Just to clarify why this is wrong. First we are not talking about more than one, there is only one "Aldi" company.

We don't use Aldi's (notice the use of the ' for possessive after a single noun) in this case even though every company name is a proper noun which would follow this rule. It's not used because the Price Map is not belonging to Aldi, it is a price map "FOR" Aldi.

We are talking about multiple Aldi stores. I don't know if Aldi US is one company, or a franchise, or something in between. But I'm pretty certain they have more than one store.

Nah, I've seen more than one Aldi. Hence Aldis.

I always assumed this was a purely Aussie phenomenon, but I guess it makes sense that it's more of an "informal speech" thing than a regional ism.

I can't read the link but we've the same thing in Ireland. I've always assumed it stemed from shops being family owned. e.g. We have a stationary store that was originally called Eason and Sons which when said quickly sounds like Easons.

There'a s few other examples but that's the one that always stood out to me

It's British too. Tesco is always called Tesco's.

British supermarket Sainsbury's even put it in their logo.

The actual name of the company is J Sainsbury plc.

Sainsbury's is a reduction of John Sainsbury's supermarket, so they need sense. Just like Wilko's is Wilkinson's general store.

Well obviously but poster's point was that it's a British/Commonwealth colloquialism to do that.

It started as "J Sainsbury" with no apostrophe s. Then it changed it registered as "J. Sainsbury Limited" in 1922, again no 's.

"John Sainsbury's supermarket" was only contracted and picked up much later for marketing.

Or even Sainsbo's ;)

When accessing from UK: "This content is not available in your country/region."

Holy moly. How is this even still a thing?

> This content is not available in your country/region.

fitting for reading about a german supermarket chain

how about Tesco's || Tescos' || Tescos for Tesco. it's just Tesco

Surprised to see Wichita news as the url about this! Hello from ICT

Pet peeve: it's ALDI, not Aldi. It's an acronym for ALbrecht-DIskont.

Acronyms under most English style guides should be written in lowercase with the first letter capitalized. Only initialisms should be in all caps, which Aldi is definitely not.

e.g. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/17/business/aldi-winn-dixie-...

e.g. https://www.bbc.com/news/business-63015985

Aldi's corporate style is "ALDI" but that's just their internal guidance, not the rules of English.

I almost always see most acronyms (not brands with an acronym origin like Aldi) in all caps, and always considered it an odd quirk of the BBC that they did not.

E.g. The NYT itself: https://www.nytimes.com/search?query=nato

Even the Daily Mail: https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=nato+site%3Ahttps%3A%2F%2F...

But apparently the Guardian doesn't do the all-caps either. Are there any American publications/style guides that don't do all-caps?

Editors will make exceptions to general style guidelines when they think it leads to better clarity when reading. For instance, most newspapers will write iPhone with a lower case 'i', despite that being incorrect for a proper noun, because people are used to seeing it that way.