David sent in a screenshot from the Chicago Tribune that contains two apostrophe catastrophes. Neither Starbucks nor Walgreens should have apostrophes in their name.
Not only are both chains ubiquitous, there's an image of a Walgreens sign (without an apostrophe) right above the headline. That's just sloppy journalism.
Thanks, David!
Monday, June 21, 2010
Starbuck Is and Walgreen Is
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6 comments:
One of the ads in the RSS feed was for "Local Starbuck's Coffee". Another one said "Walgreen Stores". Leaving the "s" off avoids the problem, right? ;-)
Technically, it is "The Walgreen Company," so the second one might be OK. I was actually working on something related to Walgreens for my job recently.
It was the corporate brander of Starbuck's who was sloppy, not the journalist. There should be an apostrophe. Unless Starbucks is a plural, that is.
I heard the owner says that "Starbucks" was named after Starbuck, the character, so that means that it actually should be Starbuck's Coffee.
In the earliest years of the company it WAS Starbuck's - with an apostrophe. But very early on, a consulting firm suggested that removing the apostrophe would be more graphically pleasing. The then-owners went along with the argument and, right or wrong, that's what we have today.
An apostrophe is also used to indicate possesion. As if the store belongs to someone whose last name is Walgreen. It could have been "Walgreen's" store.
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