I have a follow-up question to "Thousand Dollars Worth" or "Thousand Dollars' Worth". Is this a Possessive?. I agree with the answers that it's both logically correct and sounds more natural to make "dollars'" possessive, but doesn't that imply that when the dollar amount is written as a numeral, we should write "$1000's worth" or "$1's worth" rather than "$1000 worth" or "$1 worth"? The former ones look funny to me and I've never seen it written that way.
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1The symbol represents "dollars" (or "dollar", depending on the number). So "$1000 worth" is the same as "one thousand dollars' worth"– marcellothearcaneCommented Apr 8, 2017 at 18:25
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@marcellothearcane I don't understand how the second half of your sentence follows from the first half. Where does the apostrophe come from?– tparkerCommented Apr 8, 2017 at 18:28
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any better? I was using ' for speech marks rather than "– marcellothearcaneCommented Apr 8, 2017 at 18:29
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@marcellothearcane Nope, not any better. I still don't understand where the apostrophe comes from in your second sentence.– tparkerCommented Apr 8, 2017 at 18:32
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1I don't see why not. '#' expands out to 'hashtag' when said in the context of social media, but can also mean 'number' and 'pound'. As you said, '$1000's worth' is uncommon if not nonexistent, because it's not worth writing.– marcellothearcaneCommented Apr 8, 2017 at 18:45
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1 Answer
Since no one dignified you with an answer yet, I'll go ahead and note:
I agree with the answers that it's both logically correct and sounds more natural to make "dollars'" possessive,
Good, because that's what you should do.
but doesn't that imply that when the dollar amount is written as a numeral, we should write "$1000's worth" or "$1's worth" rather than "$1000 worth" or "$1 worth"?
No, it doesn't.
You can, but—as you said—it looks funny. It's understood and implicit in the dollar amount's adjectival use, like @marcellothearcane said in the comments above.
Where does the apostrophe come from?
From the dollar amount's adjectival use.
I frankly have no idea what you're talking about... You can't just magically make "$1000" possessive when you mentally expand it out into words.
Sure, you can. We do. It's exactly the same as "11 July" being read as "the 11th of July" despite 11 being cardinal, not ordinal, and the omission in writing of "the" and "of". Everyone knows they're there, so we skip them. You could write it out yourself, but most of your readers will be more confused or dismissive than appreciative of your attempt at linguistic clarity.
