Why is Tesco often pronounced Tesco's?

Question

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Store names & possessive
“Ear doctor's” vs “Ear doctor”

I have often heard members of the British public pronounce the name of the supermarket chain Tesco as "Tesco's" or "Tescos".

Thinking that it was formerly called "Tesco's", as many old British companies are, I looked up its history and learnt that it is a concatenation of the initials of its early tea supplier's name (T. E. Stockwell) and the first two letters of the founder's surname (Cohen), and was never called "Tesco's".

Is it because of confusion with other supermarkets such as Sainsbury's and Morrisons? If so, why have I not heard "Asda's", "Co-op's" or "SPAR's"?

@FumbleFingers: Not voting to close, as trade names fall into a different category, as I hope my answer shows. — Barrie England, Jan 19 '12 at 21:00
I agree with @BarrieEngland that this has nothing to do with "ear doctor's". It is, however, a duplicate of the store names question. — Marthaª, Jan 19 '12 at 23:14
@Pitarou: Can't say I'm surprised. I haven't heard it myself, but then I have very little to do with the place. It adds credibility to my belief that the addition of the 's', with or without an apostrophe, is by analogy with stores named after their founders. The answer to why it's never never 'Waitrose's', by the way, is a mini-lesson in sociolinguistics. — Barrie England, Jan 20 '12 at 08:13
Note that Sainsbury's persisted for 130 years with their official name "J Sainsbury", before finally giving in and changing the name to what everybody called it anyway: "Sainsbury's". — Vince Bowdren, Jan 27 '20 at 22:15

score 13 · Accepted Answer · answered Jan 19 '12 at 20:58

13

As you will know, but as those living outside the UK may not, the names the supermarkets themselves use are Sainsbury’s, Morrisons, Tesco, Asda, Co-op and SPAR. The first two are named after their founders, so the terminal ‘s’ indicates that it is, or once indicated that it was, Sainsbury’s shop and Morrison’s shop (and let’s leave aside for the moment why there’s an apostrophe in one and not in the other). Co-op is short for The Co-operative, so there’s no semantic reason why it should be known as Co-op’s. Similarly, SPAR, I believe, is an acronym, so equally SPAR's would make no sense. That leaves Tesco and Asda. If the first is sometimes called Tesco’s, that may well be by analogy with Sainsbury’s and Morrisons. That is not the oddity. The oddity is that Asda is not known as Asda’s. At least, it’s not as far as I know. Maybe in some quarters it is. If it’s not, perhaps it’s because it was a relatively late arrival and the name Asda was thought somehow to be inviolable.

You may know that the UK bookstore chain is changing its name from Waterstone’s to Waterstones. This has provoked outrage among the usual suspects. However, a company can choose to punctuate its trade name how it likes without regard to what is done elsewhere. Hence Sainsbury’s but Morrisons. There are three sensible and well-informed posts on the topic here, here and here.

answered Jan 19 '12 at 20:58

Barrie England

140,205

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The company's own choice of their name is almost incidental in some cases. We call them what we want, not what they would like. I find it interesting that with Google Instant, if I type in just marks, the top suggested autocomplete is and spencer. But if I type at marks and, the top one is spencers. – FumbleFingers Jan 19 '12 at 21:54
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Asda was originally short for "Associated Dairies" – Henry Jan 20 '12 at 01:15
"We call them what *we* want," might, finally, be the speculative rationale for Tesco(')s. However, we have not yet unearthed any etymologically worthwhile history behind Tesco(')s. – Kris Jan 20 '12 at 07:09
Thanks, I understand that companies have (almost) a free choice in their names, but wondered how/why the public come up with alternative names for them. – Gnubie Jan 21 '12 at 23:23
It probably depends where you live. Oop North where I live, pal lots o' folk go to ASDA's at least once a week. We used to have a Binns's before House of Fraser pulled out and there were definitely two opinions as to how that was pronounced even though the apostrophe 's' was screwed to the wall of the building with the rest of the name. Even in that there was something of a class divide! – BoldBen Feb 08 '19 at 00:14
@BoldBen It would be interesting to study this regionally. Certain regional accents do have a tendency to pluralise (or possessivise - whichever it is) trade names etc. In Norfolk the local accent invariably adds an s to certain surnames - Youngs, Knights, etc. It is also true of Cockney. – WS2 Jan 27 '20 at 23:40
@FumbleFingers Similarly I guess WH Smith(s), Lidl(s), Aldi(s), John Lewis(es). There doesn't have to be a rhyme nor a reason about this. I suppose it becomes a matter of whatever name sticks. – WS2 Jan 27 '20 at 23:54
@WS2: Just raised this one with a couple of guys. We all agree that whereas I got this at Lidl's** sounds at least "acceptable", none of us like adding the possessive to *Aldi's*. The only relevant factor we can think of is that all of us are more likely to use Lidl['s], even though both stores are equally accessible to all of us, and sell much the same kinds of things. – FumbleFingers Jan 28 '20 at 14:05
@FumbleFingers On second thoughts I think you are right about *Aldi. I'm not sure it is to do with store preference though. We have a Lidl's* in our village but make more use of the Co-Op opposite. Our daughter does a lot of shopping at her local Aldi, and on reflection I think she does call it Aldi. But we all talk about Tesco's - and Waitrose without an s. – WS2 Jan 28 '20 at 14:25
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@FumbleFingers And names do tend to stick. What implements them in the first place is the interesting thing. When I was in the first term at grammar school, the English master wanted to hear us all read aloud. So we all followed while each member of the class took a turn at reading. One chap, let's say called Peter, pronounced the word "wholly" as *wally. Ever after, - until he left school was he known to everyone as Wally* - and probably his wife calls him that to this day. – WS2 Jan 28 '20 at 14:32
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@WS2: I still remember my first linguistics class at uni. Being new and not knowing that you're not supposed to interrupt the lecturer, I disagreed with his list of "meaningfully unique English phonemes" - some of which just "sounded the same" to me. He spent a couple of minutes getting me to repeat various words and phrases, then concluded by telling me (and a couple of dozen other students) that I had the lowest number of unique phonemes he'd ever encountered in a native speaker! (At the end of that first term all my family said I'd starting "talking posh", but I hadn't noticed! :) – FumbleFingers Jan 28 '20 at 15:28
(For example, I can exaggeratedly force a distinction between "four", "fall", and "full", but generally speaking in relaxed conversational contexts, what actually comes out of my mouth is often effectively identical for all of those and more - including "thaw" if I'm being really relaxed! :) – FumbleFingers Jan 28 '20 at 15:34
@FumbleFingers Though I haven't lived in Norfolk since 1966, and usually only people from or familiar with Norfolk can spot my origin from my speech, I still find it almost impossible to hit the RP vowel sounds for words rhyming with "boot" (Norfolk- bute), (I can make no distinction between "boot" and "boat") and words ending in "...day" come out as ...di e.g. Wensdi. But I consider my life chances were much enhanced when a good primary teacher got me to pronounce words like "music" other than as moosic. Compooter would not have come across well in a London job interview. – WS2 Jan 28 '20 at 17:10
@WS2: I thought only Bernard Mathews talked about *bootiful turkeys!* - and I'd certainly never have expected anyone to be unable to distinguish them from *boatiful turkeys* (*if* such things exist; who knows what mysterious creatures still roam the unexplored hinterlands of darkest Norfolk! :) – FumbleFingers Jan 28 '20 at 17:26
@FumbleFingers There is "Norfolk proper" - "boot" is pronounced roughly the way a northerner would say but. And then there is "Norfolk (educated)", where "boot" becomes bute. Finally there is Norfolk (sophisticated) where "boat" and "boot" are indistinguishable. But if you are interested in the grammar - take a look at the Wiki entry "Norfolk Dialect" - I wrote most of it. – WS2 Jan 28 '20 at 18:03
Well, I can console myself that even though I have a limited number of phonemes in my "natural" speech, I can at least distinguish the Isle of *Bute* from a Wellington *boot* (though I doubt my version of the former is particularly close to whatever the islanders themselves call their patch of dirt! :) – FumbleFingers Jan 28 '20 at 18:14
@WS2 Given that no-one speaking RP would dream of referring to Binn's as "Binnses" I'm always confused by The Court of St James's which is about at posh as things get but is called "The Court of St Jameses". Perhaps that's to do with the double plural. By the way does anyone in your village refer to the Co-Op as "CooperAYtive" with greatest emphasis on the a. That used to be really common with older people round here when I was not an older person, seems to have died out now though. – BoldBen Jan 29 '20 at 15:34
@BoldBen Not heard that. Though in my more senile moments I have been known to call it "Somerfield's" (with apostrophe s) which was the name of the last but one owner of the site. They moved out getting on for thirty years ago - and I've forgotten the name of the in-between one - I vaguely recall something sounding like "Greenpeace". – WS2 Jan 29 '20 at 16:17

Why is Tesco often pronounced Tesco's?

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