With 600 of THOSE coffee shops closing across the country -- some to cries of caffeine-deprived protest -- I guess I shouldn't quibble about the details.
Two of them in South Los Angeles got the hail-and-farewell treatment from the Los Angeles Times, because their opening had been regarded as another sign of a civic renaissance in a dicey part of town.
But none of the stories of the shuttered shops has answered my question.
Is the plural of ''Starbucks'' also ''Starbucks,'' or is it "Starbuckses''? Like sheep and sheep, or moose and moose, rather than Jones and Joneses?
I say that I'm getting ''a Starbucks.'' A colleague asks, ''Can I get Starbucks for anybody?'' Michael Kinsley, now a Seattleite, has written of ''Starbuckses,'' and so has the Associated Press.
Starbuck was the first mate in ''Moby-Dick,'' and there was only one of him. So maybe "Starbucks' is already plural. Now that I think of it, the ''Star'' part is incidental. As anybody who sets foot in the coffee establishment knows, it's all about the ''-bucks.''
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