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I was writing the following sentence:

Five thousand dollars worth of equipment does not a professional photographer make.

Apart from the other questionable syntax in this over-stylized sentence, what occurred to me, courtesy of Microsoft auto correct, was that "thousand dollars" may need to be in possessive form, though it's not immediately occurring to me why this would be. So which is correct:

Five thousand dollars worth of equipment does not a professional photographer make.

or

Five thousand dollars' worth of equipment does not a professional photographer make.

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3
  • See also this question at ELL: $2000 worth of items (two thousand dollar or dollars?)
    – lly
    Commented Jul 11, 2018 at 7:57
  • Note that the possessive and the plural are pronounced identically, and the question is just about whether a silent apo'stroph'e should be included when it's written. Thus this is not a question about the language at all; nobody can tell the difference in speech. And nobody has a definitive answer for the punctuation, either. Hence, quit worrying about it; if you screw up, nobody can tell.
    – John Lawler
    Commented Jul 11, 2018 at 20:35
  • Related.
    – tchrist ♦
    Commented Dec 26, 2022 at 16:40

5 Answers 5

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17

These cases aren't tricky if you ask yourself the following question: how would you write "one dollar's worth"?

In other words, "dollar" naturally requires an "s" in this case, even though we are talking about "one dollar".

Therefore, it is a case of possession, meaning that we are referring to the "worth" of "thousands of dollars". So, the possessive apostrophe should fall after the "s".

The same rule applies to "seven years' jail" and "one year's jail". Many journalists etc. are clearly none the wiser about this topic, as even some of the most astute publications contain articles which omit the apostrophe.

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  • 1
    "Another words"?
    – hunter2
    Commented Jul 5, 2013 at 8:01
  • 1
    In other words?
    – user112836
    Commented Sep 8, 2015 at 20:36
  • 2
    Explanation by analogy and intuition is often risky.  You say, «These cases aren’t tricky if you ask yourself the following question: how would you write “one dollar’s worth”?»  I suspect that many English speakers would write “one dollar worth”.
    – Scott - Слава Україні
    Commented Jul 11, 2018 at 20:50
  • "Scott A related question looking at the fixed expression << nine days wonder >> had quotes claiming that all three variants were acceptable. In line with Professor Lawler's statement above. And by analogy with most working mens clubs.
    – Edwin Ashworth
    Commented Nov 15, 2021 at 16:04
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The possessive is necessary because you're indicating that the worth or value possessed by the equipment is equivalent to the worth or value possessed by five thousand dollars. Hence, Five thousand dollars' worth

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6

Normally I would say the possessive is necessary, but it is interesting to observe the trend in usage via Google NGrams:

Google NGram

As you can see, the possessive was overwhelmingly preferred beginning in the 1830s, crested around 1920, and after WWII has been in steady decline. It has been putting up roughly the same numbers as "dollars worth" beginning in the late 1970s, and has experienced a slight up-tick since around 2005.

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  • 1
    +1 for introducing NGrams to me... my latest complete waste of time!
    – Bob Kaufman
    Commented May 17, 2011 at 18:56
  • Thought this may also just been a combination of "dollars' worth" being a somewhat dated expression and the occurrence of "dollars worth"--correctly--in phrases like "How much is 100 US dollars worth in England" (which is one of the first search hits returned for "dollars worth")
    – adam.smith
    Commented Aug 27, 2014 at 18:15
  • @adam.smith Good point. This answer was given before I started reevaluating use of NGrams on ELU.
    – Robusto
    Commented Aug 27, 2014 at 19:45
  • An answer showing something other than opinion. Good. Ngrams aren't ideal, but opinion can be shibbolethic.
    – Edwin Ashworth
    Commented Nov 15, 2021 at 16:06
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These cases can be very tricky. I've found the following document very helpful in determining when to use apostrophes: Genitive is Not Always Possessive.

The following section (referring to Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary of English Usage) is most relevant to your question:

They discuss a number of uses of the genitive and give examples of each.  Under 'descriptive genitive or classifying genitive', with the comment 'Fries adds the genitive of measure to this', they list:

    the room's furnishings
    the airplane's speed
    the building's foundation
    one day's leave
    a dollar's worth
    a year's wages
    the Eighty Years' War

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2

This is very similar to the "Two Weeks Notice" problem featured by Lynne Truss, the apostrophe campaigner and author of "Eats, Shoots and Leaves.

It should definitely be "Thousand Dollars' Worth", by the way.

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2
  • Your link returns a 403-Forbidden response. Is there another way to see this, or can you post a summary?
    – Bob Kaufman
    Commented Jul 2, 2013 at 16:48
  • Link(s) edited.
    – Phil M Jones
    Commented Jul 4, 2013 at 16:00

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