How A Grammatical Point Leads to Social Injustice
Sometimes little things bother me and they really shouldn’t because generally I am anything but a perfectionist. I was in Tim Hortons about fifteen years ago, so this is a very timely tale, and when asked by the cashier, “ How can I serve you?”
I replied, “I would like an apostrophe”.
“Is that like a Tim-Bit?”
“No, not at all. I simply want to know why on your signs, your cups and logo there is no apostrophe on the name Horton?
The conversation pretty well went dead from there; so I ordered my coffee and quietly left that establishment, but the question and this issue has never left me. Why is there no apostrophe on the name Tim Hortons? Is this not the store of Horton to which ownership is bestowed even though legally that may be held by a hedge fund in Brazil?
The world seemed, or was, totally indifferent to my line of inquiry, or perhaps people had never really thought of the missing punctuation mark from one of the greatest of Canadian icons. I get it.
What do inquiring minds do when they need answers in a time sensitive manner? They either go to Google, Wikipedia, some form of social media or Youtube for all of the real answers in life.
I found my answer on a eight minute Youtube video concerning labour issues with Tim Hortons. To my horror I discovered that recently when Ontario was putting through its minimum wage laws bringing them up to about $15.00, it was Tim Hortons (no apostrophe) that fought this initiative. In fact relatives of the original hockey playing donut loving founder, and also mega rich themselves, pushed back on the wage law by having their employees sign waivers in which they would forgo paid breaks and other benefits in order to pay for their new found wage increases. Bottom line the employees in fact helped pay for their own raise.
You know when I discovered how an iconic multi- billion dollar business could be so cheap, entitled, low-handed and greedy I thought in my quest for grammatical answers they did not deserve an apostrophe beside the name Horton! It should stand alone forever naked and shamed.
But, I found the answer and it had to do with the nefarious French. I could go two ways on this. Either the French helped simplify things, or they are petty bastards like the owners who would take away wages from their own employees. I’ll let you decide.
The ‘s is an English grammatical convention used to show ownership. Apparently, the French use some other methodology to accomplish the same thing, possibly using twice the number of words with du, and des and the like. I’m not exactly clear on the details.
Bottom line due to the Quebec French language sign laws there can be no English signage in La Belle Province. Therefore, the ‘s being an English convention has no place in Quebec on any commercial signs and certainly will not be seen gracing a Tim Hortons Franchise. To make things cheap and efficient, because through research we now know Hortons will do anything to save a buck has dropped the ‘s on all signs in North America.
Next time you wonder where the apostrophe went at your local Tim Hortons also wonder if the people serving you had to sign away their benefits in order to get minimum wage and keep their jobs. What is an apostrophe actually worth these days?
Marty Rempel
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