Correct use of apostrophes.

[ChrisHunt]

Apostrophe fans may be interested in The Apostrophe Protection Society . It's not a great website, but there are some good examples of apostrophe usage/abusage there.

The most striking ones (to me) are those like the plumber's sign which reads:

TILES
TOILETS
TOOL'S
TAP'S
VANITIES
ADHESIVES

Why do tools and taps get the errant apostrophe when the other plurals are spared? I guess the signwriter was just hedging his bets...

-- Chris Hunt

http://www.mcgonagall-online.org.uk

http://www.napitalia.org.uk

http://www.leicesteryha.org.uk

 

[Grenage]

Or that there were employees named 'Tap' and 'Tool', and the sign was not completed /grin.

 

[ESquared]

When I see this kind of hideous use of apostrophes I always want to yell "tool's what!?!?!" "tap's what!?!?!

 

[ChrisHunt]

Thanks Esquared, I'm glad to hear I'm not the only one who feels that way!

-- Chris Hunt

http://www.mcgonagall-online.org.uk

http://www.napitalia.org.uk

http://www.leicesteryha.org.uk

 

[Skullmeister]

And of course to complicate the matter even more was the person who decided to name the movie:

Bridget Jones's Diary

Shouldn't it be "Bridget Jones' Diary"?

 

[ESquared]

I've read that both are acceptable, and actually, the s's construction is more common.

 

[sleipnir214]

My research finds the same thing.

I've found one suggestion for possessive nouns that end in s:[ul][li]When the noun is singular to use "'s": [/i]Jones's[/i].[/li][li]When the noun is plural, use only the apostrophe: two weeks' notice

However, another source states that if the noun ends in "s", the rule on whether to use "'" or "'s" depends on the sound of the word. The example given was Euripides'



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[tilcat]

Has anyone else read "Eats, Shoots, and Leaves"? A BIG section on apostrophe use and abuse. For punctuation geeks, it's a kick. (Believe it or not, it's a bestseller!)

 

[sleipnir214]

Have you seen the thread in this forum by the same name?


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[ChrisHunt]

One apostrophe rule to rule them all, at

http://www.dreaded-apostrophe.com/

. He has a few more apostrophe links on his last page.

-- Chris Hunt

http://www.mcgonagall-online.org.uk

http://www.napitalia.org.uk

http://www.leicesteryha.org.uk

 

[sleipnir214]

I'll have to admit it. Mr. Nethercot makes his point very well.


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[TonyJollans]

I would agree that Mr Nethercot writes well but his explanation that leads to parents' children (that having "s's" seems a bit silly) is weak and, if correct, should surely also apply to Cassius' book except that he says it should be Cassius's book.

Given his stance, or any other, can someone explain why there is an apostrophe in ..

When the noun is plural, use only the apostrophe: two weeks' notice

It is arguably a shortened way of saying "I am telling you now of something that will happen in two weeks" but there is nothing directly missing and no possession involved.

Enjoy,
Tony

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[sleipnir214]

TonyJollans:
There is something missing. To go back to Mr. Nethercot, what's missing is something like the "e" of "es".

While two weeks'[ notice is neither possession nor contraction, it is a place in English where one is using the genitive case.

The genetive case is used to indicate possession, measurement or source. In this example, the measurement of time.

So before English shed most of the genitive case, it would have been used in the case of two weeks' notice. So we're missing some letters that in Middle English would have used to indicate the genetive case -- maybe "es".


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[TonyJollans]

So would you say ..

I'm going on two weeks holiday

.. or ..

I'm going on two weeks' holiday

?

I'd use the former (perhaps wrongly) and I don't see any difference.

Enjoy,
Tony

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[ESquared]

I'm going on a two week holiday.

Is what I would say.

 

[AnotherHiggins]

Tony,

I've been meaning to post about the "two weeks(') notice" thing myself. A few months ago I went on a kayaking trip with a few old friends, and the book "Eats, Shoots & Leaves" came up while sitting around the campfire one night (I'll cross-post this to thread1256-874493 since I'm walking the line between the threads).

We talked about the picture that appears on the back cover of the book. It is a picture of the author holding a large apostrophe on the end of a stick so as to turn the title of the movie "Two Weeks Notice" into "Two Weeks[red]'[/red] Notice." It was agreed upon by the group that the phrase "two weeks" is being used to describe the word Notice and therefore needs no apostrophe.

If it were just a bunch of boneheads, like myself, sitting there, I wouldn't bother mentioning this. But the group included an English teacher-turned-attorney and a guy about to complete his PhD in English (Composition & Rhetoric, precisely). These guys are good little scholars, and I'm sure that if they set about studying the subject, they'd find an explanation along the lines of what sleipnir214 points to, but the point is that punctuation serves to clarify meaning. It is clear what "Two Weeks Notice" means with or without the apostrophe. In fact, I personally find the apostrophe jarring - it seems to indicate that the "notice" belongs to the "two weeks."

From what I've found online, there is a division among grammarians on this particular example. The apostrophe definitely seems more common, but an argument against it does exist.

[Slightly off subject]
For anyone interested, here is an article from the New Yorker that has been quoted in many of the other articles pointed to about the book "Eats, Shoots & Leaves." It points out many grammatical and punctuation errors in the book. An example:

The first punctuation mistake in “Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation”…appears in the dedication, where a nonrestrictive clause is not preceded by a comma. It is a wild ride downhill from there.

It’s a bit long-winded (Did I mention it is from the New Yorker?) but worth a read.
[/Slightly off subject]

I now stand ready to be trounced for my comments.

-John

 

[sleipnir214]

anotherhiggins:
Remember, we're talking about the genitive case, not possession. The genitive includes measurement and source, too: Two weeks' notice, three dollars' worth.

The thing is that English has nearly shed all indicators of genitive case. What little left you do see are vestigial remains in pronouns like whose and the apostrophe to indicate possession. This article at WikePedia claims that linguists seem to agree that English has shed its genitive case and that it has become a clitic.

Similarly, English no longer provides indicators for the difference between the accusative and dative cases. The cases do still grammatically exist -- we just don't differentiate between them lexically any more.

It was a suprise to me to find out English once had the instrumental case.

For a list of cases and what they do, read here. Notice how many cases Finnish supports.




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[strongm]

I should point out (as Bill Bryson has on a number of occassions) that style guides used at places such as the New York Times and The (London) Times cannot be seen in any sense as definitive guides to grammar or punctuation. And it has to be said that the New Yorker piece realy does look like someone has simply compared the book against its house style sheets (e.g. most references that I can find to "printers marks" include the apostrophe that the New Yorker oddly claims is an error)

I should also point out that the forward referenced by the New Yorker a) was n't written by Truss and b) does not exist in the original UK edition (at least, not in my copy). It has been introduced by the publisher, and therefore surely should not be used in a criticism of the book.

>an English teacher-turned-attorney
>a guy about to complete his PhD in English (Composition & Rhetoric, precisely)

You'll have to work harder than this I'm an expert in my particualr field (quite broad, as it happens) in IT. But there's plenty I don't know.

 

[TonyJollans]

OK! I've read the referenced articles and skimmed some of the further references they make and understand that the genitive case has several uses beyond possession. BUT, nothing anywhere I've seen says that the apostrophe is always used, or should always be used, where once there might have been a genitive. The apostrophe signifies omission or possession (omission only if you take Nethercot's line), not the whole gamut of the genitive.

I guess the true answer is that at least part of it comes down to style and one need only be consistent and not glaringly wrong.

Enjoy,
Tony

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[sleipnir214]

As Mr. Nethercot said, you use an apostrophe where letters are missing. Or, I suppose, where letters would be missing were the genitive case still indicated lexically in English.


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