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More-Adhesiveness-54 t1_iyemlgl wrote

Assuming that PENNEYS sign is referring to a JC Penney, is it any wonder why people (at least in the Pgh area) started calling them "Penneys" instead of Penney/JC Penney? They literally were calling themselves that. On top of that, you have Gimbels right next to it when the actual family name was Gimbel (no s). It's no wonder people started slapping an "s" at the end of every store name.

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SaablifeNC t1_iyeyttk wrote

JCPenney has constantly changed up their logo. I remember seeing a old Pennys logo at Washington Mall then it was replaced with a JCPenny logo sometime ages ago before they left the mall for good

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vonHindenburg t1_iyfc7qa wrote

Monroeville Mall might have the Zombie Museum, but WashPA is the ultimate zombie mall. It's been mostly dead for what? 20 years now?

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SaablifeNC t1_iyfdekh wrote

Hard to believe it's been that long. It was unique mall

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[deleted] t1_iyeo7ud wrote

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More-Adhesiveness-54 t1_iyesp0z wrote

Pretty sure that's exactly why there's an "s" in Gimbels, to denote plurality from it being 2 brothers. But I'm not sure that was necessarily known to the typical shopper at the time (may have seemed like a possessive), and then you have places like JCPenney calling themselves Penneys or examples like Kaufmann's and Macy's.

It's kinda funny if you're to the point of putting an "s" at the end of stores like Bestbuy, Giant Eagle, or Wal-Mart. But I can see how there's precedent for assuming an "s" at the end of stores that are, or sound like, peoples' last names (e.g., Aldi).

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