65 votes
Accepted

Why is the apostrophe positioned differently in "ones' complement" than "two's complement"?

Donald Knuth, that doyen of computer science, says in Art of Computer Programming, Vol 2.: Detail-oriented readers and copy-editors should notice the position of the apostrophe in terms like "two'...
48 votes

Why is "our today's meeting" wrong?

This seems baffling, but what is special about today's? I think it comes down to this: We cannot use two genitives to modify a single noun. At least not outside Indian English. Today's is a "...
  • 36.1k
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 ...
  • 1,420
28 votes
Accepted

Why is "our today's meeting" wrong?

Usually, a noun phrase in English must have exactly one determiner: you can say "I drove the car" or "I drove my car", but not "I drove car" or "I drove the my car". Certain nouns (such as plural ...
  • 3,058
25 votes
Accepted

Is possessive's apostrophe dispensable in any case?

There are a few limited cases for which an apostrophe is not used to indicate possession. For example, if you're referring to something belonging to it or her, the correct form is its or hers, with no ...
  • 1,065
24 votes

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 ...
  • 157k
21 votes

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 ...
  • 18.3k
19 votes
Accepted

Two possessive nouns in a row

Yes, the first sentence is correct. Although I suspect parent's may be intended as plural here, in which case the apostrophe should be moved to be parents'. I suspect this because if the house ...
  • 559
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 ...
18 votes
Accepted

Am I correct that, in terms of conversation, "converse" can in no way be used as a noun?

I wouldn't say it's "out of the question", but it's certainly out of this era. I have never heard converse used this way and it would certainly confuse many people. But it was used like that: ...
  • 62.5k
15 votes

Which singular names ending in “s” form possessives with only a bare apostrophe?

Bryan Garner, Garner's Modern American Usage, second edition (2003) offers the following discussion of how to handle possessive proper names ending in -s: POSSESSIVES. A. Singular Possessives. To ...
  • 157k
15 votes
Accepted

Why does English employ double possessive pronouns such as theirs and ours?

I don't know why etymonline calls theirs 'a double possessive', but it's not. The unfortunate terminology of 'the double possessive', aka 'the double genitive', is not due to the pronoun theirs itself ...
  • 5,856
15 votes
Accepted

Why "thine heart" but "thy whole heart"?

As pointed out by @Jeff Zeitlin, the rule was phonetic, it's just that initial h's are highly prone to elision/deletion. The Wikipedia article on thou says that thine was used before nouns beginning ...
13 votes

Why is "our today's meeting" wrong?

I think I have an example in which the phrase "our today's meeting" might be uttered by a speaker of English, at least in informal conversation. Alice and Bob are in an office in New York, USA, ...
  • 2,819
13 votes

Possessive form for a surname ending with "z"

Spelling Possessives: A simple rule with zero exceptions There is no special rule for surnames which does not also apply to common nouns. For that matter, there is no special rule for singulars versus ...
  • 132k
11 votes

Is there a correct gender-neutral singular pronoun ("his" vs. "her" vs. "their")?

October 2017 5.48: Singular they (footnote from the Chicago Manual of Style Online October 2017) The generic singular they was endorsed in 2015 by the editors of the Washington Post, though with a ...
  • 1,022
11 votes

Is there a correct gender-neutral singular pronoun ("his" vs. "her" vs. "their")?

Novelist Anthony Burgess suggested that a gender-neutral, all-inclusive, singular subject pronoun could be formed by combining she, he and it, to form shit. Following this formula, the gender-neutral, ...
  • 3,383
10 votes

“None of who’s” vs. “none of whose”

No. It is "whose". "Who's" is the contracted form of "who is", which doesn't make sense in this context and is also ungrammatical.. "Whose" is the possessive form of "who". I'll take the chance ...
9 votes

Is there a correct gender-neutral singular pronoun ("his" vs. "her" vs. "their")?

Before I answer I wish to state that I am a proud supporter of the LGBTQ+ community and don't particularly care what pronoun anyone prefers or chooses for themself, as long as it makes them feel ...
  • 22.3k
9 votes
Accepted

People's belongings or peoples' belongings?

People as a plural of person is a mass noun, and we don;t use a plural -s. So when forming a possessive, we only add the 's: I refuse to look after other people's belongings. However, people can ...
  • 36.1k
9 votes

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 ...
  • 2,224
9 votes

Am I correct that, in terms of conversation, "converse" can in no way be used as a noun?

In the sense related to conversations, you will find examples of "to hold converse" and "held converse" but I believe these to be either mostly archaic or, else, narrow uses within Biblical or ...
  • 459
9 votes

Am I correct that, in terms of conversation, "converse" can in no way be used as a noun?

You don't have a converse. That is out of the question. But you 'have converse', at least if you are an 18th Century Puritan. It would mean that you have ongoing or continual conversations, at least ...
  • 592
9 votes
Accepted

How do we use the possessive case (i.e., 's) with "or"?

The Punctuation Guide, which draws its rules from APA and the Chicago Manual of Style, distinguishes between joint or shared possession and individual possession. In joint possession, only one 's ...
8 votes

If you are talking "on behalf of" you and someone else, what is the correct usage?

I looked at a bunch of style guides to see what they have to say on this subject. The vast majority of them dedicate at least a paragraph to the distinction (or nondistinction) between "in behalf ...
  • 157k
8 votes
Accepted

Two year's experience or two years' experience or two years experience?

I believe this is an example of the genitive case. In this situation, an apostrophe is used in lieu of the word of. Thus: Two years' experience In lieu of "I have two years of experience." Chicago ...
  • 7,052
8 votes

Do I add " ’s " after the number on a pope/king’s name? (e.g. Pope Paul VI’s)

The English apostrophe-s is not a case inflection the way you have in German or Russian, Latin or Greek. Rather it is a clitic that attaches to the end of the entire noun phrase, not merely to the ...
  • 132k
8 votes

How would you say "a car manufactured by Toyota"?

As Janus Bahs Jacquet points out, it's common to call a product by the manufacturer's name when it's closely identified with the manufacturer. Thus you can say "I bought a Toyota." If you say "I ...
  • 13.8k
8 votes
Accepted

Mnemotechnic approach to identifying transitive vs verb-adjective constructs

Attempting to analyse sentences in isolation runs counter to what language as a system of communication is. There is no way to disambiguate the plant has buried leaves without further context and/or ...

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