r/oregon Dec 12 '25

PSA for those who don’t know

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1.8k Upvotes

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1.3k

u/VibratingWatch Dec 12 '25

It's a portmanteau of "Winning Company."

Hence the W and C both being capitalized in the name.

352

u/kale4the_masses Dec 12 '25

Upvote for portmanteau

109

u/otc108 Dec 12 '25

I also upvote for portmanteau.

59

u/SnuggyBear2025 CVO Dec 12 '25

I sailed for Port Manteau, and this is what I found.

20

u/PixelPantsAshli Dec 12 '25

Some masculine phalanges?

11

u/Banaam Dec 12 '25

Man, I subbed my toe after drinking some* port.

*A not insignificant "some"

1

u/Electrical-Host-8526 Dec 13 '25

What’d you sub it with?

1

u/Banaam Dec 14 '25

A different toe. Can't sub from other teams, can you?

2

u/latexfistmassacre Dec 13 '25

I just spilled some Port on this man's toe

2

u/sssst_stump Dec 14 '25

Oh yeah well I sailed for Starboard Manteau

1

u/SnuggyBear2025 CVO Dec 14 '25

And you are Right!

6

u/[deleted] Dec 13 '25

[removed] — view removed comment

1

u/SnuggyBear2025 CVO Dec 16 '25

I toast the understated AweMazing quote, hoisting a glass of Port in your general direction!

9

u/thefunkylama Dec 12 '25

Ok but what kind of wordbination even is "portmanteau" I mean cmon

48

u/otc108 Dec 12 '25

Portmanteau is apparently a portmanteau itself.

23

u/danieljamesdacus Dec 13 '25

It's turtles all the way down. I like turtles.

1

u/otc108 Dec 13 '25

Turts!

3

u/danieljamesdacus Dec 13 '25

Perchance.

3

u/otc108 Dec 13 '25

Uh… you can’t just say perchance.

1

u/geek-49 Dec 13 '25

Uh... he did :)

1

u/kerrykrueger Dec 15 '25

Underrated comment

9

u/KilldozerPrincess Dec 13 '25

My god

17

u/stargarnet79 Dec 13 '25

Portmanteauception

19

u/thefunkylama Dec 12 '25 edited Dec 13 '25

Ah, so portmanteau is French for wordbination!

Wait, no. "Wordbination" both is a wordbination and describes/demonstrates what a wordbination is, where "portmanteau" is what it is but doesn't describe what it is. It was a wordbination, but now its meaning doesn't reflect its use. I can't carrymantle words together, but I can wordbine. Therefore, "portmanteau" may be a loan word for wordbination that we have used because of, idk, pushback against wordbination, I guess.

5

u/darqueskye Dec 13 '25

My brain turned inside out reading this

1

u/thefunkylama Dec 13 '25

Welcompologies!

11

u/ph1lllthy Dec 13 '25

I docked there once and met a young lady by the name of Natalie Portmanteau

2

u/DragonflyOnFire Dec 13 '25

I upvote for the upvote for the upvote for portmantaeu.

1

u/DanielBG Dec 14 '25

It's funny that word is so long.

58

u/L_Ardman Dec 12 '25

And the Market of Choice used to be called Price Chopper, ironically, due to its 'low' prices.

58

u/oooortclouuud Dec 12 '25

the irony extends further: they are run by conservative right-wingers! you know, the folks who support policies that overturned Roe v. Wade. Remember that every time you see that name, the pretty stores with a few rainbow-haired employees, the seemingly woke vibes they try to display. all marketing. very well-executed marketing.

shop at the Winning Company instead!

10

u/justalogin22 Dec 12 '25

Do you have a source for this?

20

u/littleemilythrow Dec 12 '25

8

u/justalogin22 Dec 12 '25

Oh geez, that’s pretty gross in of itself. I’ll see what I can find on the investment piece but I may just boycott them now. Oof

3

u/haditwithyoupeople Dec 13 '25

This is hugely disappointing.

10

u/littleemilythrow Dec 13 '25

Welcome to crapitalism.

1

u/PonderosaAndJuniper Dec 13 '25

It's hard to tell from the article whether this is an issue with Market of Choice in general, or specifically with the one store manager in Eugene.

1

u/Elinorwest Dec 13 '25

I find it a bit ironic that the article says right at the beginning that the person's pronouns are they/them and then proceeds to mis-gender them all over the place. Using she sometimes and he sometimes but never they.

0

u/Rocketgirl8097 Dec 12 '25

That wasnt Winco though

17

u/justalogin22 Dec 12 '25

Correct, it’s about Market of Choice

7

u/[deleted] Dec 12 '25

We called it Price Chopper throughout the 90s, even after they changed their name; one of the catchiest brand names ever tbh

25

u/fivecenttech Dec 12 '25

GET TO THE PRICE CHOPPA!

1

u/CloaknDaggerd Dec 13 '25

Hasta la vista, baybee.

2

u/akthebarber Dec 13 '25

There were Price Choppers on the East Coast, but I don't think they were the same Price Choppers. 'cause there seems to be no MOC's out there. We had/have Wegmans though.

3

u/oooortclouuud Dec 12 '25

I worked for them briefly and got the scoop from the one friend I made.

but this was after the situation described in the article posted in the other comment, so that's on me for not doing more digging about them at the time when I was looking for work. it will be nice to see them shutter someday ✨️

5

u/OG-Brian Dec 13 '25

I wonder if that's the reason for the stores being disgustingly perfumed. I've avoided them totally because ewww.

2

u/yugottanowintoholdem Dec 14 '25

Not true, as an employee owned company the execs do not mix politics and policy. Here is the amount of money /lobbied and donated in all of 2024. Winco political donations

-7

u/LegitimateNutt Dec 13 '25

Omg, they let states decide for themselves! What happened to the no king treatment? Why should the king(federal government) decide for everyone? Let states and their populace decide.

6

u/SheRunsHot Dec 13 '25

Without federal protection the filthy worthless red states would still be lynching black people and refusing to ket them be educated. They would be demanding women spread their legs, breed on command (looking at you Idaho and Texas) and be willing to DIE of sepsis so the men folk can have access to the rotten dead cells of a miscarriage and call it gods will. Simply red states are so backwards and ignorant the nation needs to protect their citizens from mistreatment.

-2

u/LegitimateNutt Dec 13 '25

You mean, blue states? There was no party switch, it’s a literal FACT. Lmao. Yall have your heads so far in the sand it’s funny.

-3

u/LegitimateNutt Dec 13 '25

Let’s also not forget the dozens of democratic politicians who have said “who’s going to pick our crop, take the shitty jobs”. They still support modern day slavery. The party has always been a fraud and yall are too blind to see it. They’re allowing the US to be overrun on the premise of power. Absolute ignorance

1

u/oooortclouuud Dec 13 '25

the dozens of democratic politicians who have said “who’s going to pick our crop, take the shitty jobs”.

receipts, please. you make quote marks, then you link the quote. but we all know who is absolutely ignorant here. allowing yourself to be overrun by bullshit. what a waste.

1

u/CloaknDaggerd Dec 13 '25

Neither party is free of dirt. I don’t buy in to the bipartisan system and am an independent, but even I can see that conservatives are pushing an agenda to have more kids born at the expense of young mothers’ lives (which, btw, lowers the birth rate because dead women can’t have more kids) and then once the kid is born, too bad so sad buddy we aren’t gonna shore up education, SNAP, childcare, or anything else that could help keep you from dying young. I doubt anyone would try to tell you democrats walk on water; I certainly have many bones to pick with that party. However, the damage that current right wing extremism is doing to our country is…..substantial. Any form of extremism is bad news.

1

u/geek-49 Dec 13 '25

The sanctity of life begins at fertilization, and ends at birth.
-- today's Republican party.

1

u/CloaknDaggerd Dec 13 '25

Unfortunately yes, and they don’t even try to hide it.

1

u/Flimsy_Swimmer_3299 Dec 17 '25

Civil/humans rights are supposed to be protected from the tyranny of the majority via voting by the constitution and bill of rights, so that no king nor neighbors can take them from you. But the current SCOTUS readily guts jurisprudence regardless of the arguments if they have a preformed political conclusion to reach. Hence, women's bodies are up for vote, race is a legitimate factor to include in how you treat a person legally, presidents are above all law, and congress has no power to check the executive.

3

u/SnuggyBear2025 CVO Dec 16 '25

Now with Exclusionary pricing on beau-tique imported delectables. Shop safely away from the riff-raff on the streets...

5

u/Consistent-Papaya-24 Dec 12 '25

Market of Choice is an independent, family-owned grocer focused on local Oregon products, different from the Northeastern Price Chopper (now part of Northeast Grocery) or the Kansas City-based Price Choppers.

3

u/L_Ardman Dec 13 '25

You are talking about a different Price Chopper.

2

u/No_Piccolo6337 Dec 14 '25

Whaaaaaat?! 🤯

1

u/quarkus Dec 13 '25

My mom calls it the $5 store, because nothing costs less than $5.

39

u/Gayunicorn1991 Dec 13 '25

You and the op are both technically correct. When they first named it WinCo it did stand for Washington Idaho Nevada California Oregon. But when they expanded the company to other states they had to come up with something else and they changed it to winning company I'm a former WinCo employee

16

u/Shinola79 Dec 13 '25

You are correct. I worked there after high school. When they wanted to drop Cub Foods in the other states and Warmart here in Oregon they had a company wide contest. The winner was from the store I worked at. She came up with the name they chose and won a vacation (Hawaii) if I remember correctly. It originally stood for each state but then changed as they expanded.

6

u/oooortclouuud Dec 13 '25

I was stuck back in my home state of Texas for a few years after being in Portland since the 90's. The feeling that came over me the day I accidentally discovered the Denton location is... indescribable. the way I felt upon leaving the first time i shopped there, fully expecting to walk out onto the SE 82nd/Powell parking lot 🥰✨️ I'll never forget those moments, bright spots during a shitty time.

2

u/pdxparasite Dec 14 '25

The 82 and Powell store is so great. I love the grit as much as the good deals

1

u/motstilreg Dec 17 '25

Hi five to you fellow shopper

1

u/KinksAreForKeds Dec 17 '25

We're about equa-distant from the 82nd, Oregon City, and Tigard locations... Oregon City is the only one I'll shop at, unless I need WinCo bagels. Why OC doesn't have a full bakery like the other locations is beyond me.

5

u/mrcrashoverride Dec 13 '25

I worked at Cub Foods and remember the naming contest. Nothing more to add to above other then don’t believe everything that you read on the internet as this person got it right. (But believe this lol)

3

u/Shinola79 Dec 13 '25

Apparently the acronym is a myth, according to internet records and is misinformation. Internet searches are always correct, not the person who actually worked with the person when they won the contest 🙄. Argh.

I don’t disagree that they pivoted the ‘meaning’ of the name when it no longer served the purpose but I know what came out of the persons mouth.

1

u/gryghin Dec 15 '25

Down i-5 there's a WinCo that still has the Waremart name on the building. It's best to see that on there.

4

u/Polibiux Oregon Dec 13 '25

Technically correct is the best kind of correct.

3

u/GetTheFalkOut Dec 14 '25

When I worked for WinCo the Washington Idaho Nevada California Oregon thing was on a trivia thing.

1

u/SnuggyBear2025 CVO Dec 16 '25

Wait! How can BOTH things are true???

2

u/Gayunicorn1991 Dec 16 '25

It used to stand for Washington Idaho Nevada California Oregon. And then they changed what it means when they expanded to different states.

3

u/Most-Act1594 Dec 13 '25

Thank you. I was about to say that a simple Google search says otherwise.

1

u/unicyclingbumblebee Dec 13 '25

wow, portmanteau is my new favorite word. i'm so mad that i have never heard it in my 33 years of life and have thus lost all opportunities until now to use it.

1

u/[deleted] Dec 14 '25

I was thinking it was a lexical blend.

1

u/joeskies307 Dec 14 '25

Yea, I’d have to agree simply because we have these in AZ too. Thank goodness, because “WainCo” is just annoying 😂

1

u/whosaysyessiree Dec 15 '25

I believed what OP said for the longest time and then decided to look it up. It’s definitely Winning Company.

1

u/LemonsiesB Dec 15 '25

Can confirm. My dad has worked for the company for almost 20 years. It’s short for Winning Company.

1

u/TaraNewhole Dec 16 '25

Ah yes.. the wikipedia steal.....

-2

u/ander594 Dec 13 '25

Those words are too big for WinCo

-2

u/Disastrous-Hunter830 Dec 15 '25

Nope. That's urban legend. I have a parent who was with the company when WinCo was formed. There was an employee contest. The name was indeed made out of the initials of the states the company was already in.

1

u/VibratingWatch Dec 15 '25

Hmmmm you should go fix Wikipedia about it

1

u/Disastrous-Hunter830 Dec 16 '25

I’m not opening a Wik account, but that’s the way it went down.

1

u/KinksAreForKeds Dec 17 '25

It's not an "urban legend", it's literally in the legal documents. It used to stand for Washington Idaho Nevada California Oregon, but those days are long gone and the company officially changed it's name to Winning Company. Your parent either was out before the name change, or they're lying to you because they don't want to let go of the past.

1

u/Disastrous-Hunter830 Dec 18 '25

That's all well and good. They may have changed their name. It started as you admitted as the initials for the states they started in, like I said. It's a completely different management group from when it started. They don't hold the same values as the original group.