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'...
- 966
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 ...
- 88k
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 ...
- 16.3k
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 ...
- 298
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 ...
- 35.9k
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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