It feels like a lot of people with ADHD don’t really experience the things that neurotypical people do – when people are around them, their thoughts and actions mostly appear to happen in a sort of dreamlike bubble, where everything is supposed to have a clear, well-defined start and end and a continuous, smooth trajectory. Even in their own heads they don’t seem to have the sort of time bubbles that normal people have – it feels to them like they’re thinking in a state of complete openness, with the present moment constantly morphing into the next. It’s like that quote about how you never know where you are because your thoughts are always moving.
Here in Britain we have a chain of supermarkets known as Tesco. However some people refer to these stores as Tescos, indicating a plural, or as Tesco's which denotes ownership of the stores by "Tesco", whoever that is. I would like your opinion on which is correct.
I tend to say “Tesco” as that is the word I’m more used to, and it’s the one that will fit into whatever context I’m using it in.
Fantastic to hear that you have the correct answer. Although if it was possessive Tesco’s I would be fascinated to know who Tesco is.
If it’s possessive Tesco’s, they own some amount of Tesco’s, and they own it through some entity called Tesco. That’s the case with many companies in that situation – Google owns Alphabet, Amazon owns LogisticsLogic, so forth. But Google and Amazon don’t just have “Google” and “Amazon,” they have “Google inc” and “Amazon inc.” The corporate structure is part of the legal identity, like your name, although people would usually also use another name for day-to-day use (if you want to refer to your company, say, on legal forms or whatever, you’ll use inc or something like it).
The situation with Google and Amazon, while somewhat more complex than the scenario described by the OP, is not actually that convoluted. In the simplest case, say you want to create a website where you can order a product, then you’ll make a new company, Inc.., and buy the domain name “www.amazon.com” so that it will “belong” to Inc..’s brand (and of course, that’s what you’ll link people to – I mean, you aren’t going to link people to Inc..’s site, because that’d be bad). Inc..’s corporate parent is Amazon, Inc. At this point, you aren’t actually “Amazon,” you’re just “Inc..” – but you’re Amazon, Inc., in the sense of “the group of entities legally distinct from one another and also legally distinct from your previous incarnation,” whereas the group of people who do “the thing” for you (as Amazon) are the “Inc..” corporation.
It’s kind of like your name – no one has to use your name unless they want to refer to you, and when they do so they have to say “James Inc.”., not just “James.” But they’d be stupid to do that for legal or organizational reasons; saying “James” on paperwork would be confusing or misleading or something.
And as for the “who is Tesco”? Here’s a story. There was once a company called “Jameson’s Limited,” owned by the Jameson family. And one day the company changed its name to “Jameson Limited & Partners,” because the business had grown and now they had more than one partner (there were several Jamesons in the ownership group).
Later, some other companies wanted to buy Jameson Ltd. & Partners, so they created another company with the same name. But people weren’t confused because they referred to this other company as “Jameson Ltd.” and to the other Jameson Ltd. (which wasn’t a partnership at all, now) as “Jameson & Partners.”
In some cases, companies will want to “brand” themselves in a particular way. The Coca-Cola company, for instance, will probably not want to have any other beverage company start advertising Coca-Cola. So the Coca-Cola company will create a subsidiary, Coca-Cola (UK) Ltd., which owns the “Coca-Cola” brand name and also owns the “Coca-Cola” trade name. The Coca-Cola company will then own the company Coca-Cola (UK) Ltd. (There can be more than one Coca-Cola company, I guess.)
The parent company in this case will be Coca-Cola Ltd., which is different from Coca-Cola Inc. (that one just owns “Coca-Cola” the brand) because the parent company will not own the company Coca-Cola (UK) Ltd., which would be confusing. (I think it’s a bit clearer than in the case of Google & Co. and Inc.. where you don’t actually own or have any right to any of the individual companies.)
(I haven’t used “inc.”., by the way. My habit is to refer to the parent company as that one and the subsidiary as “the one that owns this,” rather than referring to the subsidiary with anything other than the name of its parent company.)
That was more in depth than I was expecting. Here is a picture of Tesco (or Tescos or Tesco’s) to give you a flavour of what it is like to shop here.
In general, when I think of it in those terms, I would say “the one that’s not the one that owns that” (where that “that” refers to the store in the picture, which is one of the ones that’s owned by Tesco), but I would also say “the one that doesn’t own the one that owns this” (I’m guessing the store has many owners because it’s actually quite big), and I can’t help but wonder whether there are possible situations where there’s no such thing.
I guess technically speaking, all of the companies listed above are distinct companies as opposed to part of the same company, and thus the “ownership” of, e.g. Google is not in question here. But still I guess when people talk about the same person in different ways they are usually saying “we’re talking about the same entity rather than about the same person.” E.g. if Google and Microsoft were to split up tomorrow, and someone said “James is still Google’s CEO,” I would still think they meant “James is still the head of Google (and its other subsidiary companies)” rather than “James is the same as that other James” (but I imagine they would probably still say “I still do the thing”).
It was because I was naked with an axe at the time. We’re pretty serious about not breaking any laws and stuff here, so I can’t really talk about it.
Why did you bring an axe and yet no clothing on the vampire tour, Frank?
I was being very considerate by leaving the axe within my grasp, where no one would need to see it, as the only way to harm me was by attacking my unprotected fleshy bits.
You can always rely on my knowledge of pop culture and fashion trends to make you look like a total dumbass if you ask me to draw something and I don’t immediately come up with a stupidly impractical outfit with a name like “Frosty the Fucking Manatee.”
Tim swung Heidi’s hand and arm back and forth, and then stopped and looked at her with very round eyes. He said “You are so funny. Your sense of humor is pure joy and creativity. You are so funny. I could say this 50 more times, and I may.”
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