I have a question about possessives. While “Peter’s ball” is easy and clear. How do I express the notion of “the ball that belongs to agent 2”? Would it be “agent’s 2 ball” or “agent 2’s ball” or what else? Answer Your second guess is correct: Agent 2’s ball The ball is owned by ‘agent … Read more
As I get older I become more pedantic. I recently wanted to write a message explaining my dread of going to weddings of children of my friends. Which of the following is correct: I am dreading going to my friends’ children’s weddings. or I am dreading going to my friend’s children’s weddings. Answer From what … Read more
Say, I want to tell my readers to come visit the U.S. and enjoy American lifestyle (such as eating American hamburgers, watching football games, playing Beerpong, etc). Then which of the followings will be the best expression? (if I can’t paraphrase it) Enjoy American’s daily life. Enjoy American daily life. (indefinite article?) Enjoy Americans’ daily … Read more
I’m writing a passage with quotes from a book, but that quote has an apostrophe. What do I do if the situation is this?: “Yes, yes, I’ll tell you,” said John. Around that should be another pair of quotation marks, because that is the quote I’m putting inside my essay. The other questions only show … Read more
What is the correct way to indicate “Justin and I” as being possessive of our individual lives in this sentence? Is there a way to do this without restructuring the sentence? A friend of mine posted a Facebook status that said, “It was this week that Justin and my lives changed forever,” in regard to … Read more
I’m not sure if you can possess respect. I think if I had worded it differently, such as ‘They were no longer afraid of losing their colleagues’ respect’ I wouldn’t have a problem with the apostrophe, but it just doesn’t look right to have an apostrophe indicating possession at the end of a sentence. Thanks! … Read more
Isn’t this sentence: He stole the singer of that band’s wife. a wrong attempt at saying: He stole the wife of that band’s singer. Someone pointed this out: The <singer of the band>’s wife is the wife of the <singer of the band>. The wife of the <singer of the band> is the wife of … Read more
My understanding of the correct use of the apostrophe would be: the posessive form, e.g. ApostropheLover’s obsession with the apostrophe a contraction: don’t, it’s, there’s an abbreviation, my id’ badge is in my backpack Is the third case correct? How should one punctuate an abbreviated word like “id” (identification) or “repo’” (repository)? Answer ID badge … Read more
I can’t find any good resources on this topic. We have an application that will abbreviate words at certain screen sizes and uses nomenclature specific to our client’s fields. One question that popped up is whether or not words abbreviated by a symbol use an apostrophe when plural. The word in question is “dollars”, which … Read more
Sinn Féin has confirmed that one of their MLA’s has removed a clamp from the front wheel of his car, using what appears to be bolt cutters, in Belfast. This is from the BBC website. I know the merits of ‘s for plural acronyms is covered at Plurals of acronyms, letters, numbers — use an … Read more
