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On our drive, we seen that indicators for the restaurant had been everywhere, apostrophe-wise. Some indicators had the apostrophe earlier than that last S. Some had it after the S. Some had no apostrophe and on some the apostrophe appeared to float above the S, just like the tongue of flame you see on a Renaissance portray of an apostle being visited by the Holy Spirit.
“Nicely, it has developed over a few years,” Jackie Woodward, chief advertising officer at Bojangles, instructed me in an interview.
You'll discover I didn’t use an apostrophe simply there. That’s as a result of on Aug. 3, 2020, the corporate dropped a bombshell: It was nixing the apostrophe, going from Bojangles’ to Bojangles. This was the most recent incarnation of a sequence that began 46 years in the past as Bojangle’s Fried Hen.
Which makes you surprise: Is it a restaurant created — even when fictitiously — by an individual named Bojangle or an individual named Bojangles? And the place does the title come from anyway?
“The story goes that Jack Fulk and Richard Thomas had been placing collectively a brand new restaurant idea and hadn’t picked a reputation,” Woodward mentioned. “Jack was driving alongside the freeway and heard that track.”
That track was “Mr. Bojangles,” written by Jerry Jeff Walker, a 1970 hit for the Nitty Gritty Dust Band and a favourite of Sammy Davis Jr.’s. The track shouldn't be about faucet dancer Invoice “Bojangles” Robinson (1878-1949), however a couple of dancing drunk Walker met in a New Orleans jail cell who provided that nickname as a pseudonym.
“Bojangles the restaurant has no affiliation with the track,” mentioned Woodward. The founders simply preferred the sound of the phrase.
Over time, the apostrophe migrated, modifying a lengthened title: Bojangles’ Well-known Hen ‘n Biscuits. (Don’t get me began on the ‘n.)
With me to date? As my household drove on I-95, one in all our quantity puzzled if possibly it must be Bojangles’s.
And truly, it must be, at the very least if it was as much as The Washington Submit. As regards to possessive apostrophes, our stylebook stipulates: “Use ‘s to kind the possessive of singular nouns, correct names and nicknames ending in a sounded s: Lucas’s new film, the boss’s secretary …”
It clarifies: “However use the apostrophe alone for Jesus’ and for historic and biblical correct names of a couple of syllable ending in -es: Demosthenes’ orations, Xerxes’ conquests, Jesus’ beginning.”
And it consists of one other instance of the place The Submit would use ‘s: “Gonzales’s nomination.”
Pretty much as good as their biscuits could also be, Bojangles shouldn't be biblical. By The Submit’s model, it must be Bojangles’s.
I consulted Vessela Valiavitcharska, director of the Writing Heart on the College of Maryland and a scholar of rhetoric, grammar and logic in Byzantium and the Slavic world.
“In written English, particularly when it’s a reputation that ends in s and it’s a polysyllabic title, you might add the apostrophe s, if you're actually a stickler for the principles,” she mentioned. “Or you might omit the second s in case you really feel prefer it’s redundant.”
However types differ. And school college students, she mentioned, must know which model they’re meant to be utilizing when writing their papers: Chicago, say, or MLA.
In fact, writing is one factor. Saying is one other.
“There are two various things: choices about spelling and choices about pronunciation,” mentioned Linda Coleman, a professor of linguistics on the College of Maryland.
“I might anticipate that no matter whether or not an apostrophe is there or not, individuals wouldn't pronounce the additional syllable,” Coleman mentioned. “Individuals decide based mostly on what shouldn't be going to sound foolish.”
And “Bojangles’s” simply sounds foolish.
Nonetheless, I feel it’s enjoyable to say, whether or not it’s possessive or plural: Bojangleses. (Within the case of a couple of, The Submit’s copy editors would go for “Bojangles eating places.”)
Woodward, the Bojangles advertising chief, mentioned the corporate remains to be within the technique of changing all of the outdated indicators with apostrophe-free variations. And the model of the signal that had the apostrophe above the S? It might have appeared that manner, however it was imagined to be after the S, she mentioned.
“What makes my job a lot enjoyable is that individuals do care about whether or not Bojangles has an apostrophe or not,” mentioned Woodward. “It reveals the fervour that our prospects have for our meals.”
And at this time’s column has proven the fervour I've for the weirder corners of the English language. Now, have you ever heard how the individuals who make these little orange sq. crackers are adamant that a couple of Cheez-It's not a bunch of Cheez-Its however a set of Cheez-It crackers?
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