Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2010 October 31

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October 31

Reese'ses

Resolved

 – –Kerαunoςcopia^◁_galaxies 01:48, 1 November 2010 (UTC)

I just saw a Halloween TV ad for Reese's PB cups. The punchline was something like, "Having to give away all your Reese's." Out of sheer curiosity, wouldn't it be grammatically correct to write "Having to give away all your Reese'ses"? It would be like saying, "Having to give away all the Joneses", only the possessive is part of the name. – Kerαunoςcopia^◁_galaxies 07:12, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

I like the form "Reese'ses" myself, but as far as conventional grammar is concerned, a possessive can't be treated as an ordinary noun and then pluralized, so there's simply no correct form.

A similar issue arises when a possessive is used as an ordinary noun and you want to form the possessive of that noun. "Do you have a copy of McDonald's's annual report?" Again, in conventional grammar there's no possible form and you just have to rearrange the sentence. (In practice I think most people would say "McDonald's" for this one.) --Anonymous, 09:30 UTC, October 31, 2010.

For some reason, in Canada, they are sold as "Reese," so it would be "Reeses." -- Mwalcoff (talk) 18:20, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

(WP:OR)The reason for the absent apostrophe in Canada is likely that the name must be presented in both English and French, and French does not use an apostrophe for the genitive of possession (which may have some other technical name now). I was at HBC, for example, when all the apostrophes were removed from "Zeller's" though the name became "Zellers" and not, using the Reese example, "Zeller". (The same did not apply to "Hudson's Bay Company" because the whole of that name required translation "La Compagnie de la Baie de Hudson"; "Zeller" is a family name and thus did not require translation.) Bielle (talk) 02:10, 1 November 2010 (UTC)

The "Reese's" is an ellipsis for the complete name "Reese's peanut butter cups". The phrase for which "Reese's" is a stand in for is already plural, so my understanding is that there is no grammatical requirement to pluralize the shortened phrase any further. i.e. One Reese's (peanut butter cup), two Reese's (peanut butter cups) -- 174.31.221.70 (talk) 19:52, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

Aw shucks, I thought I stumbled on something great. Thanks so much to everyone for their responses. Anonymous, that makes perfect sense then, and thanks for the additional and clarifying example. Mwalcoff, that's just weird lol. And IP, that's an interesting point, the shortened name. I didn't realize there was a linguistics term for that. – Kerαunoςcopia^◁_galaxies 01:48, 1 November 2010 (UTC)

Mercury, Saturn, and Subaru

How many automobile brands are named after astronomical objects? --84.61.153.119 (talk) 13:35, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

The question was presented and a few more examples given in 2007 at www.suite101.com/content/astronomy-and-car-names-a17748 (to which I can't link directly as Wikipedia blocks links to the site), but it's unlikely that anyone has ever actually compiled a full list. Obviously any RefDesker is likely to be able to suggest some such names (the Vauxhall Astra springs immediately to my mind), but to answer the question with the exhaustive list it demands would require recognising 'astronomical' names in a large number of foreign languages. You might therefore follow the procedure previously suggested to you here: this would be the likely best means of doing so, affording you hours of fascinating linguistic research. 87.81.230.195 (talk) 16:54, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

When you asked the question about country names containing car brands, I compiled a plain text file of every car brand (that is, manufacturer), and ran a python script to compare it with a list of country names. I have no such list of names of astronomical objects, but I still have the file of manufacturers. Reading quickly through that I find: comet, meteor, aurora, suntrike, shan star, orion, solaris (fictional planet), star, mercury, apollo, armstrong (tenuous), lone star, pathfinder (a probe we sent to mars had this name), rocket, sun, vulcan (fictional or hypothetical planet), astra, minerva (an asteroid, a failed probe, and a proposed name for both Uranus and Pluto), nova, royal star, startwin, achilles (an asteroid), barnard('s star), phoenix (constellation, galaxy, spacecraft), sunbeam, swift (spacecraft studying gamma rays), suncar, pegasus (constellation, rocket, couple of galaxies), pluto, fast (yet another spacecraft), heavenly horse, polarsun, and datsun (yes, this refers to the actual sun). Not all of these are named after astronomical objects on purpose. For instance, the article Mercury (automobile) says The name "Mercury" is derived from the "messenger of the gods" of Roman mythology. Many of the brands are defunct, and I haven't tried to translate all the various Japanese, etc., brands to see if they mean anything astronomical. I have no idea why you want these questions answered, I assume I'm pandering to some kind of autistic impulse on your part, but hey, that's what I'm here for. I'll mention in passing that my contenders for the worst-named car brand include the Virus (automobile) and the SCAT (automobile). 213.122.55.156 (talk) 07:39, 1 November 2010 (UTC)

That makes the answer 33, by the way. 213.122.55.156 (talk) 07:42, 1 November 2010 (UTC)

See w:de:Wikipedia Diskussion:Botschaft#Odd cross-wiki behaviour by someone in Germany; sometimes includes edit-warring and disruptive page creation for a discussion of the questioner's edits. --A. B. ^{(talk • contribs)} 17:30, 2 November 2010 (UTC)