Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2015 June 16

= June 16 =

"Shopkeeper" in American English
Does the British English "shopkeeper" become "storekeeper" (or something else) in American English? 108.171.128.167 (talk) 10:01, 16 June 2015 (UTC)


 * American here. I would say that either would be universally understood in the States.  Dismas |(talk) 10:11, 16 June 2015 (UTC)


 * That's good. Is either more natural or more common or preferred? Or is there nothing in it? 108.171.128.167 (talk) 10:31, 16 June 2015 (UTC)


 * "Store manager" might be more common than either. But of the two, I think "storekeeper" would be more common. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 11:57, 16 June 2015 (UTC)


 * Sure, we recognize and understand both terms in the USA, but agree with Bugs that we natives don't commonly say them. Also I think there must be a time as well as geographic window for which the word even makes sense. It was different in the USA ~40-50 years ago, but today many people in the USA primarily have access to big box stores, and very few mom and pop shops. So while I might use "shopkeeper" to refer to the proprietor of my local bike shop, there's nobody at e.g. Home depot that would really merit the moniker (instead they have cashiers, managers, stockers, sales assistants, team leaders, and all sorts of other titles on their badges). Finally, my WP:OR is that "storekeeper" sounds much weirder and occurs much less often than "shopkeeper," but I've moved about a good bit and worked with many Brits. SemanticMantis (talk) 13:38, 16 June 2015 (UTC)


 * I disagree with Bugs. Storekeeper is not a word in common use in American English.  Certainly it is used by some people some of the time, but it is not the usual word to refer to the owner or manager of a store.  If it were, since North American English has roughly as many users as Commonwealth English, we would expect roughly as many Google hits for storekeeper as for shopkeeper.  Instead, we have 8.7 million hits for shopkeeper and about 800,000 for storekeeper.  The normal equivalent to the British shopkeeper in American English is either store owner, which gets 5.7 million Google hits, or store manager, with 37 million hits.  I agree with SemanticMantis  that shopkeeper, which sounds quaint and is used mainly for quaint little shops, is heard in American English more often storekeeper, which is almost rare.  Marco polo (talk) 13:43, 16 June 2015 (UTC)


 * Here's a google ngram graph of the terms you mention - it's a little more rigorous than simple google searches, but then again it's a corpus of books, which are different than speech and casual web speak. I don't think it will be easy to tell what proportion of books are BrEng vs AmEng, but we can assume your rough equivalence works here as well.
 * Anyway, 'storekeeper' did have higher frequency than 'shopkeeper' for a bit in the 1940s, so Bugs' suggestion was more in line back then (and that makes sense, since most of his jokes seem to come from that decade as well ;) SemanticMantis (talk) 13:53, 16 June 2015 (UTC)


 * I am surprised to see that storekeeper scores higher than store owner or store manager today, since it is somewhat alien to my speech community. It makes me wonder whether storekeeper is actually in wider use outside the United States because it is parallel to shopkeeper.  Too bad Ngram can't distinguish the nationalities of writers.  Marco polo (talk) 14:04, 16 June 2015 (UTC)


 * I find the equation of store manager and shopkeep(er) odd. The manager works for the owner or for a chain, while a shopkeep is the owner/proprietor.  When people decry the death of the Ma & Pa store they are not lamenting the loss of the store manager position. μηδείς (talk) 17:20, 16 June 2015 (UTC)


 * The store manager serves the same role, in that they are the highest person you can complain to, on site, if there is a problem. StuRat (talk) 17:33, 16 June 2015 (UTC)


 * Ah, yes, the famous Napoleonic line that "England is a nation of store managers." μηδείς (talk) 20:35, 16 June 2015 (UTC)


 * In a case where the store is actually owned by a person on-site, I (US English, Detroit) would either call them the "owner" or "proprietor". Note that there may also be both an owner and a store manager present, in some larger shops where the owner can't manage it all alone. StuRat (talk) 17:33, 16 June 2015 (UTC)


 * In South African English "storekeeper" is actually the title of an occupation. You can go to college and take a course in storekeeping, but it has little to do with directly serving retail customers. One of my cousins started his career as the storekeeper at an automotive repair company, he managed the on-site store of spares. It was his job to see that the workshop got the items they needed and that they don't run out of brake-pads, spark-plugs, etc. A "lite" version of warehouse management. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 12:22, 17 June 2015 (UTC)
 * This meaning of storekeeper (aka storeperson, formerly storeman) is also still current in the UK: the company I work for has a couple. One perhaps-not-universal feature is that they deal with stock levels, but not to the detail of tracking individual Serial Numbers of (expensive) non-fungible items, which can be a problem (which we're trying to address). With reference to the US equivalence to "shopkeeper", I would be expect to encounter this usage in a US period setting such as a Western novel or film, less so in a modern context for the reasons discussed by others above. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 212.95.237.92 (talk) 13:17, 17 June 2015 (UTC)
 * Isn't ambiguity the reason why an American "store" is not likely owned by a "storekeeper"?  The quartermaster has charge of the stores, and when somebody wants something out of the stores they go to the "storekeeper" to get it. 5.150.92.20 (talk) 19:26, 17 June 2015 (UTC)

What is the Burrand Bush?
The article on Battle_of_Stoke_Field describes `` ... a large stone memorial with the legend "Here stood the Burrand Bush planted on the spot where Henry VII placed his standard after the Battle of Stoke 16 June 1487" ``. What is the Burrand Bush? --Dr Dima (talk) 14:58, 16 June 2015 (UTC)


 * Hm. Could be an obsolete common name. Looking at the stone, it's maybe possible to read it as "Burr and Bush" - as though two plants were planted, or it was the name of a pub. Oh, just found this book , which claims 'Burrand' was synonymous with 'Burham', and in 1828 it was "a large, lofty and ancient thorn tree" - so perhaps one of the Crataegus spp. is a good starting guess.SemanticMantis (talk) 16:26, 16 June 2015 (UTC)


 * ... but not the name of this pub. Martinevans123 (talk) 16:40, 16 June 2015 (UTC)


 * I don't see any space that would indicate it was meant as "BURR AND BUSH". It appears the lettering was otherwise done by a competent engraver, so I don't think omitting the space accidentally is likely (or that they would fail to replace it, had made such a mistake). StuRat (talk) 17:40, 16 June 2015 (UTC)


 * Looking at the stone, I think it may be a mistake to read "burrand bush" as a proper name that should be capitalized. One possibility is that -and is a present participle ending.  This was the regular present participle ending in Middle English in the Midlands. In this case it could be a reference to a bush that bore burs.  Marco polo (talk) 19:11, 16 June 2015 (UTC)
 * You have a pretty good case, I'd say. At least it's not the Bush that bored boys. Martinevans123 (talk) 19:37, 16 June 2015 (UTC)
 * What do you think of the claims made in the book I linked above? I don't know if the proposed Burrand/Burham interchangeability makes sense, but the 1828 quote further says the tree "...has borne the appellation Burham Bush for time immemorial". But Hawthorne is still a likely candidate, whether it was named after Burham or that it bore burrs or both. SemanticMantis (talk) 20:09, 16 June 2015 (UTC)


 * I found Nottinghamshire Hidden History Team - Nottinghamshire’s Part in Richard III’s Story by Frank E Earp (scroll down almost to the end of the article): "The Burrand Bush: Curiously, the bush became known as The Burrand Bush, a name which makes no reference to the purpose to which it was supposedly planted. Thorn bushes, White Thorn and Black Thorn, have for thousands of years held a sacred connection to Sovereignty and it is not surprising to find a bush of this kind being used to mark such a site. What I find interesting is the fact that a thorn bush twice plays a role in Henry VII life at a time when his rightful kingship is challenged. We do not know how-long the original bush lasted or if, as it died and decayed, it was replaced by another, but what is certain is that the bush was eventually replaced by a succession of stone markers know as The Burrand Stone. Again it is curious that the stone bares (sic) an inscription which seems to first commemorate the bush rather than the raising of the standard; ‘Here Stood The Burrand Bush Planted On The Spot Were Henry VII Placed His Standard After The Battle Of Stoke June 16th 1487′." Alansplodge (talk) 15:47, 17 June 2015 (UTC)