Another Hyphen Bites the Dust

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The times, they are a changing:

Wal-Mart Stores Inc. is taking the stores out of Wal-Mart. The retail behemoth with more than 11,700 locations around the world announced Wednesday that it will shorten its legal name to Walmart Inc.

….Sam Walton opened the first Walmart store in 1962 in Rogers, Ark., after opening several stores with other names including a Walton’s 5 & 10. The name Walmart came from Bob Bogle, one of the first store managers, according to Mr. Walton’s autobiography. The company incorporated in 1969 as Wal-Mart Inc., then became Wal-Mart Stores Inc. in 1970 when it went public.

I’m afraid the Wall Street Journal missed the real story here: Wal-Mart also removed its hyphen. Actually, they did this years ago, but no one seemed to catch on, possibly because the company’s legal name was still Wal-Mart. But now there’s no excuse.

Hyphens have always been the great disappearing punctuation mark, used for a short while and then abandoned, and now Walmart has abandoned the last vestige of Sam Walton’s hyphen. As usual, though, it did yeoman work for decades before it was finally killed off. So let’s all observe a moment of silence and respect for Walmart’s hyphen.

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BEFORE YOU CLICK AWAY!

“Lying.” “Disgusting.” “Scum.” “Slime.” “Corrupt.” “Enemy of the people.” Donald Trump has always made clear what he thinks of journalists. And it’s plain now that his administration intends to do everything it can to stop journalists from reporting things they don’t like—which is most things that are true.

No one gets to tell Mother Jones what to publish or not publish, because no one owns our fiercely independent newsroom. But that also means we need to directly raise the resources it takes to keep our journalism alive. There’s only one way for that to happen, and it’s readers like you stepping up. Please help with a donation today if you can—even a few bucks will make a real difference. A monthly gift would be incredible.

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