Is it correct to keep the apostrophied words in these phrases? It seems more logical to drop the apostrophe, but is it good grammar? bald as a baby’s arse as she spoke in the big man’s ear sitting so close to the redhead’s pungent aroma would have been proud of his namesake’s resourcefulness the world’s second oldest profession that is hawk’s eyes darting about and focusing on the water’s movement more clues to these people’s eroticism Peter’s mental state prevents him main suspect in Claudia’s murder obsessed by Claudia’s purity and before George’s mother returns on the bitch’s well worn gash
Apostrophe...damn'. Thanks for correcting that Nick, if only Plazma could correct the title.Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
No. tablariddim has them correct. You should put the apostrophe after the "s" when the "s" is making it plural, or when the "s" is part of the word... Jesus' words were... Bulls' tails are... (indicating the tails of more than one bull)
You're right, its only when there are more than one e.g babies: The babies' room (if there are more than one babies etc.)
This is not correct. You, like millions of people, were confused during the 1980s and early 1990s, when newspapers saved space by adopting the horrifying practice of leaving off the final S in constructions like "Mr. Jones' Hat." It is "Mr. Jones's Hat" and it is pronounced JONZ-EZ, two syllables, not JONZ, one syllable. The practice spread and became utterly ridiculous, when you'd see headlines like "President Gomez' Speech" or "The Peace Process' Failure." You would never think of pronouncing those possessive forms without the extra syllable, if you hadn't seen it in the newspaper, the final arbiter of style in the English language. Fortunately they stopped doing this ten or fifteen years ago and now write Gomez's and Process's correctly. However the damage was done, and you can hear uneducated people say "Mr. Jones' Hat" as if JONZ were one syllable instead of two. Ditto for Gomez', although these people get so confused that their tiny brains explode when they try to figure out how to pronunce Process' without a third syllable. This is simply incorrect. Don't do it, ever. I'm sure you'll still see it in writing because the illiterati picked it up from the newspapers 20 years ago, but it's still wrong. No decent editor or professor will allow it. This is correct, but it's because the S is a plural ending, not part of the basic word. The paradigm is: Bull -- Bull's Bulls -- Bulls'
Fraggle is correct. For one thing it should NEVER be used to indicate plurality ("I saw five dog's" is totally incorrect). It's used to indicate one of two things - posession/ownership ("It's Bill's hat.") and as a contraction (" Bill's wrong" - meaning "Bill is wrong).
Fraggle is completely correct. How sad that proper grammar is no longer taught. Here's a link to the guide:http://www.crockford.com/wrrrld/style.html
I don't think this is correct: "the world’s second oldest profession..." I think it should be "The worlds oldest profession..." Ditto for "the water’s movement..." It should be "the waters movement..." I'm also curious why no one has mentioned such terms as "it's", a contraction for "it is" ...and others like it. Baron Max
"the worlds oldest profession" implies more than one world. "waters" is acceptable in a different construction, as in, "the waters moved", but "water's movement" is correct. http://www.apostrophe.fsnet.co.uk/