masCh, on 04 June 2015 - 12:26 PM, said:
I have no idea, lol.
For what it's worth though, it reminds me of an encounter I had once as a young kid. A Yankee family moved to our Southern community and joined our 4-H Club. They became very active in it and became involved in a project I was leading. The Moms divvied up the duties for the project amongst themselves so that no one child volunteered his/her Mom to do too many things. This lady in particular volunteered to take a group of us kids to Walmart to buy materials. When we arrived, she turned to me and asked me to bring her a "carriage."
I blinked, looked at her, and asked, "A what now?"
"A carriage," she replied simply.
"I don't understand," I said, "What do we need a carriage for?" Inwardly, I was thinking that I only knew of one family in our area that even owned one, and was incredibly puzzled as to why she wanted one, let alone why she wanted one
now.
"That, silly boy, please bring me one" she said as she pointed to the shopping cart rack.
"Oh," I returned, suddenly understanding, "You mean a buggy!"
"No, no!" She replied surprised and a bit exasperated, "That's a carriage. Buggies have two to four wheels and are pulled by horses."
I blinked again, looked at her, and said, "No Ma'am, that's a carriage. Down here, that (I pointed at the shopping cart again) is a buggy."
We had a good laugh over it. I grabbed the "buggy" and we completed our shopping trip.
If I were to answer your question, I would have to assumed that the reason why some people, such as myself, call a place of shopping a "store" while others, such as yourself, call it a "shop" is due entirely to regional differences. To me, a store is a place of business while a shope is a place where you go to get your car fixed.
None of it really makes much sense though. I suppose a "store" really should be a storage unit while a "shop" should be a place where you shop and a "fix" is where I would take my car.