‘s that refers to a person’s home or shop

Hello,

Is the answer (C) American English, referring to the doctor’s surgery or office?

Here is an excerpt from the TOEIC listening part II, set 14, exercise 1:

1). Where have you been?

(A). I’m going home
(B). I’ve been fine
(C). I was at the doctor – CORRECT

english-test.net/toeic/liste … urday.html

According to British English, “-‘s” is added to a word and is used to refer to a person’s home or shop–http://oald8.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/dictionary/s_4. However, in this particular test, I am wondering why there is no “-’s” added to the “doctor”.

Thank you.

Best wishes,
Bhikkhu1991a.

Nobody seems to be answering your question. As a native English speaker from the U.S. I can only say that doctor or doctor’s would be acceptable to me, although I usually say doctor. I looked up the google ngram, which can be a valuable tool since “what is correct” is usually defined by “what most people write”. But unfortunately, it was inconclusive.

books.google.com/ngrams/graph?co … moothing=3

Although this is interesting! I wonder what the difference is?

books.google.com/ngrams/graph?co … moothing=3

As a UK based speaker, ‘doctor’ sounds strange to me. As the dictionary suggests, I would expect the addition of an -s.