30
votes
Accepted
Apostrophe for indicating possessive. How do I convince my professor?
As few people are addressing the '"more scientific™" sources' bit of the question, it should be pointed out that there are a number of English style guides out there, practically all of which should ...
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24
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Apostrophe for indicating possessive. How do I convince my professor?
The strongest endorsement that I could find from a UK English source in favor of using 's after singular nouns of any kind to indicate possession is this brief treatment from The Oxford Guide to Style ...
- 158k
21
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Apostrophe for indicating possessive. How do I convince my professor?
A piece of advice here from someone who did a CS Master's thesis himself:
You don't. You write it the way they want it written. Consider it like a house style guide. The rules in style guides aren't ...
- 18.4k
18
votes
Apostrophe for indicating possessive. How do I convince my professor?
From Charles Darwin's Origin of Species
OR THE PRESERVATION OF FAVOURED RACES IN THE STRUGGLE FOR LIFE.
From the First Edition, 1859
One of the most remarkable features in our domesticated races is ...
- 88.4k
9
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Apostrophe for indicating possessive. How do I convince my professor?
Nobody's more standard than
Shakespeare, who says:
Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
Blow, blow, thou winter wind! Thou art not so unkind as man's ingratitude.
How sharper than a serpent's ...
- 2,269
9
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Accepted
Do you *ever* need to use "of" with possessive "s"?
"An agent of King Ronald's" is completely correct, as any grammar book will tell you. It is called a "double genitive" and just like "A friend of mine," "A friend of his," etc. are grammatically ...
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6
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Do you *ever* need to use "of" with possessive "s"?
You don't have to do it, but it is common to say (if not write) "a friend of Ronald's", by analogy with "a friend of mine". "A friend of me" might be logically defensible but idiomatically, it is ...
- 27.9k
5
votes
Are there nouns that undergo no change when used in the possessive (Saxon genitive)?
I think you might be mistaking attributive nouns in noun–noun compounds for possessive nouns with apostrophes, but I’m not completely certain.
When you have a child entertainer, the word child is ...
- 133k
4
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“…the house of our neighbor's” vs. “…the house of our neighbors' ”
Neither is correct; no apostrophe is needed with this construction. However, if you said '...at our neighbours' house', the apostrophe goes at the end if more than one person lives there, or before ...
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4
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Apostrophe for indicating possessive. How do I convince my professor?
Is it really your supervisor you need to impress? Is it not an external examiner?
You have put a lot of work and effort into your research, and you obviously care about the quality of your work. I ...
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3
votes
Can one explain the different distributions of the Saxon and the analytic (Norman) (periphrastic, 'of') genitive
English speakers preferentially use the possessive apostrophe when the possessor is a living entity.
When the owner is a living entity, the prepositional phrasing is technically correct, but the ...
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3
votes
Accepted
What is the correct way to show tiered possession?
Those are all just fine.
Imagine your boss’s husband’s sister’s hairdresser’s salon, for example. Those all just chain together.
We don’t have to write the salon of the hairdresser of the ...
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3
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Should it be Champions' League comeback or Champions League comeback?
I think it is correct to use the "official" name regardless if we like its punctation, i.e. no apostrophe as in:
UEFA's website uses the following style consistently:
UEFA Champions League latest ...
- 22.4k
2
votes
Apostrophe for indicating possessive. How do I convince my professor?
I'm currently writing my master's thesis in CS and my professor thinks that the apostrophe possessive is only applicable to people. He claims to have spoken to a linguist from Cambridge who confirmed ...
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2
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“…the house of our neighbor's” vs. “…the house of our neighbors' ”
The answer is 1. But please note that there is a basic syntax problem. You don't say both "of" and "’s", so the correct syntax is:
We had Thanksgiving dinner at our neighbor’s house.
Or: We ...
- 724
2
votes
Why is the genitive case necessary/unecessary in the examples below?
Actually, I would have said that in the first sentence, "Netflix" operates as a noun modifying the word "subscriber," just as it does in the phrase "Netflix subscription." Note phrases like "magazine ...
- 174
2
votes
Accepted
Possessive with acronyms
No, they are not treated differently. The possessive form of the apostrophe applies to an acronym as elsewhere. The acronym forms a proper noun.
- 250
1
vote
Apostrophe 's, "of", or nothing to show possession/ownership?
why do we sometimes show possession/ownership using 's or of, why sometime not?
Neither the Saxon genitive (the family's name), nor "of" (the name of the family), nor noun1 + noun2 (the ...
- 38.1k
1
vote
Apostrophe 's, "of", or nothing to show possession/ownership?
As your suggested alternatives indicate, there are any number of ways of showing ownership, both specifically and generally by simply subtracting an 's or adding a couple of words (as in "the dog'...
- 19.2k
1
vote
Which one of these sentences is better? A thesis title - Apostrophes Showing Possession
In a comment, John Lawler wrote:
When you're already using apostrophes to represent non-English phonetics or spelling, using an apostrophized possessive in addition is a risk.
My suggestion: ...
1
vote
Possessive form: Others vs Others'
Your examples are generally ambiguous, as spoken, and the spelling depends on what is meant. Your example “My Morals are mine, not others’" means that my morals are mine alone, not the same as the ...
- 17.1k
1
vote
all (of) Mary's paintings?
Preposition
noun, Grammar.
1.
any member of a class of words found in many languages that are used before nouns, pronouns, or other substantives to form phrases functioning as modifiers of ...
- 147
1
vote
Apostrophe for indicating possessive. How do I convince my professor?
Convert all your possessives to prepositional phrases using "of", e.g., "the bat's wings" becomes "the wings of the bat".
Move on with your life.
You happen to be correct, but sometimes it's best to ...
- 135
1
vote
Accepted
1
vote
plural possessive form of a mutated plural?
Yes, you can "make the sum of multiple groups possessive while keeping a distinction between these groups intact" - you just have to use a few more words to ensure the distinction. Your question ...
1
vote
plural possessive form of a mutated plural?
In terms of 'correct' usage, it's wrong to do what the OP is suggesting. Neither written English nor its spoken form has an accepted mechanism for making "the sum of multiple groups possessive while ...
- 39
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