i was a vers livre poet reborn
into the soul of a gonzo and i
never never boss
buy my food
at walmart we have a box
store that is cheaper than walmart
but it is farther
than the kroger
so we do not go there
plus walmart only sells
cookies and cheap juice anyway
no dairy or meat thank god
toujours gai lamby toujours gai
I don’t really see why people have such a downer on Walmart, all they’re doing is what every other public company does - trying to maximise their profits and shareholder dividends, and the expense of their employees, customers and competitors.
That is the way of capitalism.
I agree, and hence my problem in it’s entirety 
The problem with trashing Walmart, is that in doing so, we also trash something we usually value, a lot, consumerism. We expect to receive the benefit of modern commerical practice. We want products at a quality level we understand for a fair price. Walmart and other large companies usually do this. It may not be the best quality product, but most people know this and make an informed choice to buy for less.
Many of us like older, smaller businesses, in town centers, with friendly faces, providing quality service etc. These wonderful Mom and Pop stores also tend to be inefficient and charge more.
The conundrum is that consumerism (a good thing) is often at odds with preserving livable communities (another good thing).
My own view is that Walmart and its ilk engage in lots of reprehensible business practices. However selling things at affordable prices is not a reprehensible business practice.
About “then” and “than.” They’re different words with different meanings and different pronunciations. What’s the problem? Well the problem is that language doesn’t exist to validate the existence of dictionary publishers, it exits so people can communicate. If the real world of speaking people want “then” and “than” to be interchangable, then it will be so.
My own pet peeve these days is “over”. “Over” is a word describing a location. It’s the opposite of under. I put my shoes on over my socks. When people say “Over 1,000 people appeared at the opeing of the new Walmart”, it’s just wrong. They meant to say “More than 1,000 people appeared at the opeing of the new Walmart”.
Another losing battle.
Aha! One o’ them. Thought so. 
djm
Location, location, location!
For you Silk drinkers out there, did you know that Wal-Mart (Best Value) makes the very same thing, soy milk, for about a dollar less per ½ gallon? It tastes exactly the same. Well, compared to my health food store anyway ($3.34 vs. $2.24). Wal-Mart does sell Silk milk for about 50 cents less than the health food store.
I prefer to stay away from as many soy based products I am aware of.
I don’t like the taste of soy either. Too beanio. I make my own milk in a blender from almonds (boiled and peeled) and cashews, plus a little sweetener and salt. Most people who try it can’t tell the difference between it and cows milk.
Cows milk is designed to make your calves grow. So, how’s your lower legs?
True this is. Exits it does, so people communicate can.
This sounds yummy. If you have the recipe (measurements or their ball park figures) I’d appreciate a copy before you sign off the net. 
I got nice calves, smallish, but muscular. Gitalong little doggie.
Cran, if you had used the phrase “In my experience” instead of “In popular usage”, I’d be perfectly happy with this post.
I’m not certain I would. Those words have very different meanings.
Aha. It’s the different spelling between the two that gives it away, isn’t it?
They do in your and my experience, Joseph, but maybe not Cran’s. Nobody except Cran has Cran’s life experience, so we are not qualified to judge him wrong if he had expressed himself as I indicated.
My point is that Cran has very little world experience, as he would admit, so maybe in his estimation (and I suspect the pronunciation he’s used to hearing in Kentucky and Alabama) these words sound the same and thus can be used interchangeably.
I do have a problem with Cran using the phase “In popular usage” because I do not think he has enough data to know what “popular usage” comprises.
Do I hear the distant rumbling of an oncoming Poll?
Or, setting aside my prescriptivist hat and donning a descriptivist one, do eye here the distant rumbling of an oncoming pole?
Walmart doesn’t disturb me half as much as the people who shop there.
What do they need all that stuff for
and why do they behave like they’re hunting for it in the jungle?
The problem is that America has embraced the schwa. I frequently
see “then” used when “than” is meant, but not the other way around,
because we generally use a similar “e” sound for both (I assume this
is regional, though).
i.e., I will often see “This is better then that,” but have seldom seen
“I got up, than brushed my teeth.” I’m sure it happens, though.
I don’t mind shopping at my local Walmart.
The groceries are generally of good quality, though like any store they can occasionally get a bad run of something. I’m very picky about my food, and wouldn’t buy groceries at walmart if they weren’t of decent quality.
Interestingly, the Walmart near my house has plenty of “specialty” items like pre-packaged prosciutto and pancetta, Chinese black rice, sushi rice, kalijira rice, couscous, mangos, and other foods that even just a few years ago you would have a hard time finding in any grocery store. They have started carrying decent fresh-cut herbs as well, though the basil was a little wilted last time I looked.
Generally speaking, I buy staple foods from walmart. They’re cheaper than the somewhat closer grocery store, and the quality is as good, and sometimes the range of selection is better.
If I need hard to find specialty items like creme fraische or demi glace, or want something of especially good quality (like if I’m making lamb, or seafood), I’ll shop at Whole Foods, HEB Central Market, or other high-dollar organic food store. This seems like pretty normal behavior to me.
Walmart clothes and stuff are cheaper partly because they are of lesser quality. This is even true of the same brand of clothing..I’ve read that Levis uses cheaper materials for Walmart jeans than the same jeans sold at the Gap. If you can live with this, that’s fine. I buy shoes twice a year at Walmart for $8.00 ($16/year) before I started doing that, I used to wear more expensive shoes from the local suit store at $72.00…they would last me about three years before needing repair or replacement ($24/year). I keep a pair of the nicer shoes on hand in case I need to dress up, because they do indeed look nicer, and I can wear the cheaper ones for general usage without worrying about wearing out good shoes. For what it’s worth, my $12 Walmart shirts have generally held up better than the Roundtree & Yorke shirts I’ve bought from Dillards…which annoys me considerably as they cost between $50-70 a shirt.
My wife has a bit more of an activist mentality, and so chooses not to shop at Walmart because her sensibilities are offended by many of the same things mentioned here. She shops at Target, which is even a little further away. And this seems acceptable to me too…everyone exercising the right to spend their dollars where they want for whatever reason they want.
As for “then” and “than”, I have only experienced them being used interchangeably by elementary school children and one guy I knew who was nearly illiterate. But that may be a regional thing.
They are also completely differing parts of speech. THAN is a subordinating conjunction and is used to make comparisons. I have also found that it can also be used as a preposition (Shakespeare did this: " A man no mightier than myself or me." or John Milton: “Beelzebub…than whom, Satan except, none higher sat.”). THEN is more often than not used as an adverb that tells about time. It can also mean “therefore”. There are a few instances where THEN can be used as a noun (example: Since then he’s been more cautious), although that’s not typically how we use it.
I do wonder, though, how long it will be before we just make it so that they are indeed interchangeable. Look at the phrase by-the-bye. That is the correct way to write it, but since no one ever seemed to know that the second bye was spelled with an “e”, many people spelled it without the “e”. Now either form is acceptable in American English, which I find to be irksome. Of course the Queen’s variety tends to look less “favourably” upon innovations such as these
By the bye, I’m not a Shakespearean or Miltonian scholar…those were the examples given in Webster’s 10th Collegiate dictionary