Search results for 'tag:Possessives' matching tag 'Possessives'

Re: Can you correct my grammar?

mister micawber — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 23:12:35 GMT

No, no apostrophe in the 1600s . The apostrophe is a possessive marker, not a plural marker. It is grudgingly approved only in a very limited number of cases which would otherwise look confusing, as in this: mind your p's and q's .

Re: Possessive gerund

califjim — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 20:42:24 GMT

I suppose you mean a possessive form before the gerund. I would say no in all cases. vehicle sales' rising, Cattles's achieving, and RBS's owning are all awkward in my opinion, and in the last case, definitely wrong. The with ... -ing pattern doesn't ever take a possessive before its gerund, as far as I know. In my opinion, the possessive works better with the pro-forms my, your, our , etc., and even there, Dickens was probably the last person to handle them with anything resembling expertise. CJ

Re: Possessive case of compound nouns

clive — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 19:28:24 GMT

Hi, The natural thing to say is simply 'My driver's licence is red' . My sweater is green. etc. Best wishes, Clive

Re: Possessive case:

clive — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 19:05:04 GMT

Hi, which is correct: "driver's license color ..." or "driver license's color ..." ??? Of these two choices, I'd go for "driv ing license's color ..." But what is your context? eg I 'd simply say 'My driving license is green'. Clive

Possessive gerund

raffere — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 18:17:25 GMT

Should the following sentences take the possessive gerund? If so, why? Thank you " In spite of vehicle sales rising 17 per cent " "These proposed changes are central to Cattles achieving a more cost-efficient business model that mirrors current levels of lending activity,” Apax’s stake will fall from 71 to 51 per cent, with RBS owning the rest .

Re: Possessive case of compound nouns

debpriya de — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 17:47:21 GMT

" The colour of my driver's license is red." You could use such a sentence.

Possessive case of compound nouns

vafu — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 17:00:28 GMT

Which is correct: "My driver's licence color ... is red" or "My driver licence's color ... is red?"

Re: Wife and I's

grammar geek — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 14:22:24 GMT

Rather simple solution in proper English... the possessive for wife is 'wife's' and the possessive for I is 'my'. so... "Can you get rid of my wife's and my middle initials..." should do the trick. Oh, thank God. An answer. If only someone had said that same thing in the first post after the original, back in October 2005. Oh... wait. Someone did. Usually I'm not this sarcastic, but this makes the second time in this very thread that I've pointed out that looking at the dates before putting your time into replying would make for a better use of people's time.

How often? All the days.... and more

soprano — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 20:17:15 GMT

Hello, can you please help me? 1) Can we say "the hotel was elegant"? I don´t know if we can use the word "elegant " for a hotel. 2) Possessive case: Is it ok in this case to write "The house of Paul´s grandmother"? Or should we write "Paul´s grandmother´s house"?? 3) When this question was asked "How often did you go to the beach?" Many of my students answered: I went to the beach all the days . Should I consider "all the days" wrong? Is it the same "everyday" here? Thank you very much in advance! Soprano

Re: Incorrect to make it possessive?

califjim — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 06:20:27 GMT

Is it incorrect to make possessives of animals? No. This is the dog's dish. CJ

Re: Possessive apostrophes

mrpedantic — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 23:04:49 GMT

Hello JJ, Always the latter. All the best, MrP

Possessive apostrophes

jamie jones — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 22:23:04 GMT

Do you write: My mother’s- in- law Southern hospitality or My mother- in- law's Southern hospitality?

Re: Help me please

gleb_chebrikoff — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 09:00:59 GMT

Dear friend, The judge announced a recess is correct; in it, recess means a period of time when the proceedings of a parliament, committee, court of law, or other official body are temporarily suspended . *I can buy snacks at the school's recess has an incorrect preposition at and the possessive school's. It should be changed into ... snacks during the school recess/the recess at school. Good luck to your son. Respectfully, Gleb Chebrikoff

Re: Is the sentence right?

philip — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 19:02:45 GMT

No possessive punctuation . that of takes care of the possessive.

Pronunciation girls´

louise beach gounard — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 16:07:50 GMT

My 12 year old son, a native English speaker, goes to school in Spain where we have lived since he was four. He has just come back from school with a 9 out of 10 in an English exam. He was marked down on the oral exam for pronouncing ¨girls´¨ ,i.e. plural possessive, as one syllable. His teacher, a Spanish gentleman, maintains that there should be two syllables, girl ses. I know it isn´t right but when thinking about other similar words ending in s I cannot come up with a rule. e.g. Charles is one syllable, Charles´is two syllables. I am all set to charge up to the school but wanted to get my facts straight. Any help? Thanks!

Re: Brother in laws

yankee — Sat, 14 Nov 2009 02:59:43 GMT

Hi Pleasehelp More than one brother-in-law = brother s -in-law ...................................................................... The possessive form of "brother-in-law" is brother-in-law ' s (note the apostrophe!) The possessive form of "brothers-in-law" is brothers-in-law ' s (note the apostrophe!)

Re: Adjectives

billj — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 17:58:33 GMT

I think the original post was referring to possessives in general, not just 'him'. Trad grams called my, your, his/her/its, our, your, their possessive adjectives . However, in many modern grammars they came to be called possessive pronouns, which strictly speaking is incorrect because they do not function as pronouns at all (they don't replace nouns or noun phrases and cannot occur independently), though he is a special case because it can act as both: his bike (poss adj), this bike is his (poss. pronoun). More recently, they've been reclassified as determiners in the noun phrase, which perhaps makes most sense of all. Personally, I like the term 'possessive determiner' , which sets them...

Re: Plural inanimate with whose

cool breeze — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 11:27:04 GMT

Welcome to EF, badgrammar! I hope you'll soon be able to change your screen name to Good Grammar. It is correct to use the possessive form whose as a relative pronoun whenever a possessive form is needed: This house, whose windows are shut, is for sale. Or: This house, the windows of which are shut, is for sale. These houses, whose windows are shut, are for sale. Or: These houses, the windows of which are shut, are for sale. This man, whose car is parked in the street, wants to sell it. Using whose to refer to inanimate objects is not at all common in speech. It is mostly used in formal written English. (I'm sorry I couldn't come up with more natural examples of whose . ) CB

Re: Adjectives

cool breeze — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 11:19:01 GMT

As far as I understand, a possessive adjective is placed before a noun : This is his car . A possessive pronoun cannot have a noun after it: This car is his . However, in many European countries terminology is different and the term possessive adjective isn't used at all and consequently his is always considered a pronoun. This grammatical terminology dates from old Latin grammar usage. CB

Re: Apostrophes!!!

philip — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 15:57:00 GMT

In casual speaking, I probably use the more common double possessive sometimes. Hi Philip I am sure you prefer the double possessive in cases like this: I'm a colleague of his . CB As opposed to a colleague of him , absolutely. But if writing I would say that I am one of his colleagues.

Re: Apostrophes!!!

cool breeze — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 06:49:48 GMT

In casual speaking, I probably use the more common double possessive sometimes. Hi Philip I am sure you prefer the double possessive in cases like this: I'm a colleague of his . CB

Re: Apostrophes!!!

philip — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 23:14:50 GMT

"I am a colleague of Mr Smith" or "I am a colleague of Mr Smith 's " I'm not fond of what I call the "double possessive", so I would say either 'a colleague of Mr. Smith' or 'one of Mr. Smith's colleagues'. In casual speaking, I probably use the more common double possessive sometimes.

Re: Possessives

cool breeze — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 08:18:55 GMT

We couldn't tell which CDs were whose after Carly 's got mixed up with Kendal's and Charles 's CDs. CB

Re: Veteran's, Veterans', or Veterans??

madpotatoexpert — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 17:07:45 GMT

The holiday is commonly printed as Veteran's Day or Veterans' Day in calendars and advertisements. While these spellings are grammatically acceptable, the United States government has declared that the attributive (no apostrophe) rather than the possessive case is the official spelling.

Re: Apostrophe or no apostrophe

madpotatoexpert — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 16:47:05 GMT

Use an "s" without an apostrophe after the year to indicate spans of decades or centuries. 1900s is the period from 1900 to 1999. An apostrophe after the year is needed for possessives. Example: The presidential election was 1980's biggest news story.

Re: Sentence Correction

avangi — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 23:41:07 GMT

The first one is definitely correct. (object of the preposition) I'm not sure about the second one. It presents some interesting problems. While I think it's common to use or not use the possessive of a name in this case, (a friend of Paul/Paul's), we definitely don't say "a friend of me." (a friend of mine!) But of course you can't be a mutual friend of one person. Personally, I'd use your version if I had to, but I'd try to avoid it. I don't think "A mutual friend of Paul's and mine" is a heckovalot better.

Re: Use of apostrophe

philip — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 18:32:44 GMT

Use the apostrophe. I've also seen it as New Year Eve without the possessive at all, as in Christmas Eve.

Re: Please helm me with these 5 questions thank

yankee — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 05:00:14 GMT

1 The plumber said he'd stop by anytime between 10 and 12pm./somewhere between 10... I'd prefer "sometime" to "anytime". It would be more appropriate to use "anytime" in order to give someone permission to come at whatever (any) time they choose. 2 The two bad things bad thing about this apartment is its lighting. I ts It is / It's not bright at all, and that its it is / it's on the 5th floor. (Is being on the 5th floor supposed to have some sort of negative impact on the lighting?) 3 There are more cards that you need to avoid than cards that make you win. (is this ok, how would you say this?) OK in context.