Timeline for Apostrophe for indicating possessive. How do I convince my professor? [duplicate]
Current License: CC BY-SA 3.0
51 events
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| Jan 14, 2019 at 8:35 | vote | accept | fresskoma | ||
| Sep 4, 2017 at 10:46 | comment | added | Edwin Ashworth | (a) There is a move to drop the apostrophe altogether. (b) A far less drastic campaign is that the apostrophe should be dropped from purely associative rather than in any way possessive structures (thus Achilles tendon, nine days wonder, working mens clubs ... but working men's families). (c) An intermediate-level campaign is for the apostrophe only to be retained where true ownership is involved (the man's car; the cars antenna). This is in a state of flux; I'm largely in the 'b' camp. | |
| Apr 13, 2017 at 12:38 | history | edited | CommunityBot |
replaced http://english.stackexchange.com/ with https://english.stackexchange.com/
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| Sep 23, 2015 at 3:02 | review | Reopen votes | |||
| Sep 23, 2015 at 8:35 | |||||
| Sep 16, 2015 at 19:07 | review | Reopen votes | |||
| Sep 17, 2015 at 8:11 | |||||
| Sep 16, 2015 at 0:18 | history | closed |
Fattie Hellion Jon Hanna Mitch anongoodnurse |
Duplicate of Is using the possessive apostrophe correct in "the car's antenna"? | |
| Sep 15, 2015 at 18:29 | comment | added | Steve Jessop | ... But I don't think it can really be a serious slur on the professor's character since (a) the professor is anonymous here except to the questioner, and (b) Lightness clearly knows nothing about him other than what's already stated in the question, so the claim is purely speculative and has no real bite IMO. | |
| Sep 15, 2015 at 18:28 | comment | added | Steve Jessop | @DavidRicherby: Lightness often lies on StackExchange sites. Hyperbole! | |
| Sep 15, 2015 at 17:06 | comment | added | Keen | This Cambridge friend might have explained that pronouns, unlike nouns, do not use apostrophe in their possessive form, and the professor simply misunderstood the scope of the remark. | |
| Sep 15, 2015 at 17:04 | answer | added | Random832 | timeline score: 2 | |
| Sep 15, 2015 at 17:04 | comment | added | Keen | @LightnessRacesinOrbit A lie is merely one possibility. False memories occur with startlingly high frequency, and no amount of social status protects a person from that. Another possibility is that a misunderstanding occurred. | |
| Sep 15, 2015 at 16:42 | comment | added | Lightness Races in Orbit | @DavidRicherby: Please. | |
| Sep 15, 2015 at 15:17 | comment | added | David Richerby | @LightnessRacesinOrbit I'm sorry but you don't get to make a serious slur against somebody's character and then say it was just hyperbole. If you didn't mean it, delete it. | |
| Sep 15, 2015 at 15:13 | comment | added | Lightness Races in Orbit | @DavidRicherby: Partly a probability analysis, but mostly dictionary.reference.com/browse/hyperbole! | |
| Sep 15, 2015 at 12:25 | comment | added | David Richerby | @LightnessRacesinOrbit You have no evidence whatsoever that the OP's professor is lying. It seems much more likely that s/he is simply mistaken: either they misunderstood what the linguist friend said, or the linguist friend misunderstood the question they were being asked so gave the wrong answer. | |
| Sep 15, 2015 at 10:53 | comment | added | Mari-Lou A | As much as I admire Jon Hanna's and Barrie England's authoritative answers, this question is not asking if the possessive adjective can be used for inanimate objects. The OP already knows it can. He is asking instead for one or more ironclad references which he may use to convince his professor. Furthermore, answers which exhort the OP to not contradict the professor's erroneous "rule", would be utterly off-topic in the "original" question. | |
| Sep 15, 2015 at 8:22 | history | edited | Sven Yargs |
edited tags
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| Sep 15, 2015 at 8:09 | answer | added | Sven Yargs | timeline score: 24 | |
| Sep 15, 2015 at 0:48 | comment | added | Lee Daniel Crocker | You might remind him that the English 's evolved directly from the Germanic genitive noun case: and just as Germans would say "Hauses", we would say "house's". | |
| Sep 14, 2015 at 21:59 | history | protected | Andrew Leach♦ | ||
| Sep 14, 2015 at 21:51 | answer | added | einnocent | timeline score: 1 | |
| Sep 14, 2015 at 21:45 | answer | added | mankind-nil | timeline score: 4 | |
| Sep 14, 2015 at 21:18 | answer | added | R.M. | timeline score: 30 | |
| Sep 14, 2015 at 20:33 | comment | added | ps2goat | Whenever I have to argue against a friend in Cambridge, I defer to my friend from Oxford: oxforddictionaries.com/words/apostrophe | |
| S Sep 14, 2015 at 20:03 | history | edited | Hellion | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
Remove ambiguous phrasing, fix a couple of typos
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| S Sep 14, 2015 at 20:03 | history | suggested | jamesdlin | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
Reword a sentence so that parsing it less ambiguous. (I was totally confused at first.)
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| Sep 14, 2015 at 19:15 | review | Suggested edits | |||
| S Sep 14, 2015 at 20:03 | |||||
| Sep 14, 2015 at 18:18 | answer | added | Maverick | timeline score: 9 | |
| Sep 14, 2015 at 18:17 | comment | added | Lightness Races in Orbit | Your professor is lying about his Cambridge friend. Not a good sign for a high-ranking educator. | |
| Sep 14, 2015 at 16:51 | answer | added | alephzero | timeline score: -2 | |
| Sep 14, 2015 at 16:34 | history | edited | fresskoma | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
added 49 characters in body
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| Sep 14, 2015 at 16:24 | comment | added | Mari-Lou A | You've nailed him! But I'm not sure if this is a good thing, you certainly don't want to embarrass or belittle him, on the other hand you have Charles Darwin and English native speakers on your side. I don't know what kind of rapport you have with your professor, nor his precise role in your thesis. I am not an academic, so perhaps you could post a related question in SE. Academia, asking what should be your next move. Unless someone here can also confirm T.E.D's answer. | |
| Sep 14, 2015 at 15:54 | answer | added | Mari-Lou A | timeline score: 18 | |
| Sep 14, 2015 at 15:48 | answer | added | T.E.D. | timeline score: 21 | |
| Sep 14, 2015 at 15:45 | comment | added | Mari-Lou A | Perhaps this question could also be linked to SE. Academia. | |
| Sep 14, 2015 at 15:39 | comment | added | Mari-Lou A | There you go, if it was good enough for Charlie than it has to be good enough for your Prof. :) | |
| Sep 14, 2015 at 15:38 | comment | added | fresskoma | Good idea! @Mari-LouA - Found an example here at the beginning. | |
| Sep 14, 2015 at 15:33 | comment | added | Mari-Lou A | Wouldn't it be great if someone could find examples taken from Charles Darwin's The Origin of Species by means of natural selection? It would be less great, if there were no examples though. Hmm... | |
| Sep 14, 2015 at 15:23 | history | edited | fresskoma | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
edited body
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| Sep 14, 2015 at 15:23 | comment | added | fdb | @Liesmith. This link confuses possessives with compounds. | |
| Sep 14, 2015 at 15:20 | comment | added | Mari-Lou A | Personally, I don't see why you couldn't show your professor a hard copy of Jon Hanna's answer. It's a tough answer to argue against. Maybe if someone could find examples of 19th century English authors who used the possessive apostrophe for plants and inanimate objects that would convince him more. | |
| Sep 14, 2015 at 14:55 | review | Close votes | |||
| Sep 16, 2015 at 0:18 | |||||
| Sep 14, 2015 at 14:39 | comment | added | Fattie | I'm voting to close this question as off-topic because totally unrelated to this site | |
| Sep 14, 2015 at 13:13 | comment | added | Araucaria - Him | @Liesmith That would presumably just be "the window of the house". "House" there is singular. | |
| Sep 14, 2015 at 12:55 | comment | added | Araucaria - Him | This is a rule for elementary learners of English. It is not a grammatical rule, it's a guide for basic English learners natural English until they're able to judge the felicity of the genitive NP on their own. | |
| Sep 14, 2015 at 12:34 | answer | added | fdb | timeline score: -3 | |
| Sep 14, 2015 at 12:26 | comment | added | Liesmith | Yeah, sorry about that, I misread the question, so I deleted my first comment. So, it seems like you're both right, according to this page, at least: owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/621/01. Specifically, the rule "If the noun after 'of' is a building, an object, or a piece of furniture, then no apostrophe is needed"...which is honestly not something I'd ever heard before. However, this only applies to objects and their component parts (ie, "windows of the house" instead of "house's windows", but other non-people words would still be possessive (ie, "a day's march"). | |
| Sep 14, 2015 at 12:24 | comment | added | fresskoma | He'd probably argue that it might be used colloquially, but that I'd have to write "the windows of the house" or something. For the first example phrase, he suggested to just write "If each plant humidity is displayed publicly". I will give it a try nonetheless, of course :D | |
| Sep 14, 2015 at 12:20 | history | edited | fresskoma | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
added 197 characters in body
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| Sep 14, 2015 at 12:19 | comment | added | Liesmith | You could ask him how he would write the sentence "the house's windows" without implying that there are multiple houses. | |
| Sep 14, 2015 at 12:06 | history | asked | fresskoma | CC BY-SA 3.0 |