6

"Maiden's of Telford"- is this grammatically correct? I don't think it is as it appears on the side of the company's trucks. But I would be quite happy to be incorrect!

StoneyB on hiatus
  • 175,127
  • 14
  • 260
  • 461
Hefin
  • 61
  • 1
  • 1
    To be clear, it seems as though you assume the name of the company intends to use the plural Maidens. If your assumption is true, then you're correct: this is grammatically incorrect. If your assumption is not true, e.g. the name of the company's owner is Maiden, then you're simply getting confused by the similarity of the owner's name with a common word. – talrnu Jul 20 '15 at 19:03
  • @talrnu How is "Maidens of Telford" ungrammatical? If the company is a bunch of maidens that live and work in Telford, it's completely grammatical. (Just like "kings of Rome", e.g.) – Cat Jul 20 '15 at 20:15
  • @Eric I think you misunderstood my comment - I'm suggesting the asker's suspicion (that "Maiden's of Telford" is gramatically incorrect) is appropriate if the phrase is intended to be plural "Maidens". – talrnu Jul 20 '15 at 20:37

2 Answers2

15

It is quite common for a company to be referred to by the possessive form of its proprietor's name, and to take that possessive as its trade name. For instance, my great-great-grandfather Morris Rich founded a department store which eventually became known as Rich's.

Compare Rick's in Casablanca, and our ordinary use of someone's name to refer to their home: "I'm going over to Tony's tonight to watch the game.

Maiden's of Telford is the name of a transportation firm founded by A.J.Maiden and owned by A.J.Maiden & Son Ltd. The company apparently added 'of Telford' when they moved from Allscott to a new facility in Telford.

StoneyB on hiatus
  • 175,127
  • 14
  • 260
  • 461
  • 2
    A similar example would be Lloyd's of London. – ssav Jul 20 '15 at 15:41
  • @ssav Yes - it was originally Lloyd's Coffee House. – StoneyB on hiatus Jul 20 '15 at 15:57
  • 1
    One thing to consider here is that there is an implied noun after the possessive. "Maiden's [something] of Telford", like noted above with "Lloyd's Coffee House [of London]". We can just omit it because... we're awesome like that. – Cat Jul 20 '15 at 20:15
1

I don't know the company itself but I can say that grammatically speaking, it might be correct (depending on how one interprets it) but that it triggers a certain caution.

The interpretation under assumption that it's grammatically correct would be that there's a maiden (unmarried woman) or a person named Maiden (mister Maiden for instance). That maiden or Maiden's been born, raised or somehow related to the area (or company, family etc.) known as Telford.

Now, imagine that said miss Maiden owns an object, property or such. For the same of correspondence to the original question, let's assume that it's a set of trucks. Each truck can then be then characterized as owned by her - belonging to Maiden or simply Maiden's. To avoid any confusion as to which Maiden that is the master of the trucks (should there be a miss Maiden brought in Telford and another mister Maiden connotated with Stockholm), we might want to specify the "of Telford" property.

Having said that, it seems that it's either incorrect grammar or a brand name. As a brand name, there's no wrong grammar - one just registers a trademark and whatever one referred to is by definition called that.

E.g. "I are stoopid" isn't wrong if I own that trademark and sell pants under that brand. It's annoying and most likely confusing. But it's not wrong.

Konrad Viltersten
  • 4,367
  • 10
  • 38
  • 72