Re: [NTLK] possessives (was Re: NCU & OS X)

From: Scott Rogers (str1_at_swbell.net)
Date: Sat Jan 11 2003 - 16:22:42 EST


One thing to keep in mind about all of this is that Strunk is nearly=20
100 years old at this point (despite White's revision of him, he added=20=

remarkably little to the meat of the thing=97aside from the brilliant=20
introductory essay on Strunk). English, like all languages, changes=20
over time, and it appears that the possessive apostrophe rule is going=20=

to be the next big element of the language to change. The fact that=20
this discussion keeps popping up from time to time EVERYWHERE is a=20
pretty good indication that the rule is changing.

The comma will be next. Split infinitives officially went a few years=20=

ago (an incredibly silly rule that as I understand exists only because=20=

it is impossible to split an infinitive in Latin). All this, and we=20
only got the letter "K" sorted out a few hundred years ago!

Cheers
Scott

>
> In a previous message, Tom McDougal typed vigorously:
>
>> This came up in a recent discussion with friends. We disagreed about=20=

>> the
>> rule so we went to two authorities: Elements of Style (Strunk &=20
>> White) and
>> A Dictionary of Modern American Usage (Garner). The authorities=20
>> agreed:
>> Form the singular possessive by adding apostrophe-S no matter what =
the
>> last character is.=

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