Talk:Apostrophe/Archive 3

Mistake?
Text about says:

"Modifier letters in Unicode generally are considered part of a word, this is preferred when the apostrophe is considered as punctuation that separates letters, rather than a letter in its own right."

Looks like a mistake for me. Shouldn't it be instead:

"Modifier letters in Unicode generally are considered part of a word, this is preferred when the apostrophe is considered as a letter in its own right, rather than a punctuation that separates letters."

?

Because U+2019 is actually a punctuation, and U+02BC is actually a part of word (a letter).

However, I'm not a native English speaker, I could miss some hidden sense in the quote above.

(who actually per my opinion), can you confirm my rightness (and your typo)?

Sasha1024 (talk) 20:00, 30 January 2017 (UTC)

I don't think it's incorrect, although the wording could no doubt be improved, the article I quoted along with the comments go into some detail for both English and French usage. This comment sums it up quite well:


 * "The apostrophe, both in English and French (@karl) denotes a contraction, not a contraction of words but a contraction inside a word. The ʼ in “donʼt” is not a punctuation that separates “don” from “t” but a symbol that replaces the omitted ‘o’ in the affix “-not”; in French “lʼhomme”, it is a mark of the omitted soft ‘e’ in “le”, as well as marking that /lom/ is phonetically and prosodically one unit rather than two lexemes.
 * The closing single quotation is definitively not the right symbol for the apostrophe in either English or French. The ASCII apostrophe (U+0027) is (and should be) ambiguous (I both code and typeset, and when coding the ASCII apostrophe is definitively a punctuation symbol in virtually any coding language, except TeX which has itʼs own idiosyncrasies), so the ASCII apostrophe is probably not the best option for a semantically typeset apostrophe.[*]
 * Iʼm not completely convinced that U+02BC is the best solution, but seems the best compromise.
 * [*] For most practical cases, however, the ASCII apostrophe is good enough from a semantically point of view as longer as there is a clear context that we are typesetting text rather than coding." https://tedclancy.wordpress.com/2015/06/03/which-unicode-character-should-represent-the-english-apostrophe-and-why-the-unicode-committee-is-very-wrong/
 * Iʼm not completely convinced that U+02BC is the best solution, but seems the best compromise.
 * [*] For most practical cases, however, the ASCII apostrophe is good enough from a semantically point of view as longer as there is a clear context that we are typesetting text rather than coding." https://tedclancy.wordpress.com/2015/06/03/which-unicode-character-should-represent-the-english-apostrophe-and-why-the-unicode-committee-is-very-wrong/
 * [*] For most practical cases, however, the ASCII apostrophe is good enough from a semantically point of view as longer as there is a clear context that we are typesetting text rather than coding." https://tedclancy.wordpress.com/2015/06/03/which-unicode-character-should-represent-the-english-apostrophe-and-why-the-unicode-committee-is-very-wrong/

It does seem to be a slightly contentious area though, and possibly language dependent, so perhaps the wiki should make some mention of that? Paraphrased (talk) 19:00, 31 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Those are just personal opinions of some random guys in the internet, but a general rule in WP is not to present personal opinions as stated facts. So reworded.--Lüboslóv Yęzýkin (talk) 12:10, 1 February 2017 (UTC)
 * , I agree with this article very much (I also think that U+02BC is better character for apostrophe than U+2019). But Wikipedia is not about my, your or Ted Clancy's opinion, but about reliable sources. So, I support Любослов Езыкин's revert. Sasha1024 (talk) 19:18, 6 February 2017 (UTC)

Is it not better to use the standard "'" mark [provided by Wikipedia] throughout this article, rather than the imported "’" mark instead, or am I just “nitpicking” here? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 109.159.172.250 (talk) 11:54, 17 April 2018 (UTC)

Combining points
My main complaint is that (at least in my browser) these don't look anything like an apostrophe, as they appear as a blob attached to the last digit of the Unicode value. It seems like any use in text would not look much like an apostrophe either because they would be attached to the previous letter.

One way to make this look better is to add the dotted circle that is often used to show combining characters so at least the glyph is moved into the same column as the others. Spitzak (talk) 22:15, 17 October 2018 (UTC)


 * Nicely done! Peter Brown (talk) 23:13, 17 October 2018 (UTC)

Turned comma ( ‘ )
The symbol ‘ (U+2018) is correctly used in proper names such as M ‘ Culloch and M ‘ Neill in addition to its use as a beginning single quote. I accordingly edited the entry for U+2018 by adding "or turned comma" in the description of "characters similar to the apostrophe" in the Unicode section. Another editor changed my text to "single turned comma quotation mark". This misses the point that, in contexts like "M ‘ Culloch", the turned comma is not a quotation mark; it rather indicates the omission of a letter. Is there some unobjectionable way of editing the description to make clear that some uses of the character do not involve quotation? Peter Brown (talk) 21:22, 17 October 2018 (UTC)


 * I've changed the entry to


 * (or turned comma, which can mark a letter's omission )


 * What I don't know is whether, when it is used as a quotation mark, U+2018 can properly be called a turned comma. If not, calling it a "single turned comma quotation mark", as does the text I'm replacing, is simply incorrect, and my replacement is an improvement. Peter Brown (talk) 01:21, 18 October 2018 (UTC)

My edit was just to remove "TURNED COMMA" from the Unicode code point name, as that is not what Unicode calls it. I looked at the referenced document (the pdf attached to the wikipedia page for that code page) and the text "single turned comma quotation mark" was there so I used that.Spitzak (talk) 17:48, 18 October 2018 (UTC). This is the referenced document from General Punctuation: [].

Suggestions for "Entering apostrophes" section
1. In the section "Entering apostrophes", I'd like to add a sentence about the (MS Windows) US-International keyboard layout, which provides an easier way to enter a typographic apostrophe than the standard US layout: AltGr + 0. But the importance of such a sentence depends on how widely that layout is used, so this is my question: would that addition be significant here?

I admit it's hard to find a good spot for such a sentence, as it's a Windows-only statement and most of the text talks in general terms. Maybe just before the table? Inside it, on a second row, seems too presumptious.

2. I think the wording of the table's title should be changed to include more English-speaking territory: "How to enter typographic apostrophes on a computer (standard US or UK keyboard layout)" as the same codes apply, at least for macOS and Windows. However, I don't know about Linux, so I haven't changed it yet.--Geke (talk) 06:49, 14 May 2019 (UTC)

Apostrophe in business names with a plural
Why isn't any example given of an apostrophe appearing in a business name created with a plural noun, therefore ending in -s'? --Backinstadiums (talk) 19:35, 10 December 2019 (UTC)
 * Feel free to add such examples if you think they add value to the article. Rosbif73 (talk) 19:49, 10 December 2019 (UTC)
 * I genuinely wanted to know whether there was a specific reason for it. I am not a native speaker, and unfortunately cannot come up with an example right now --Backinstadiums (talk) 20:07, 10 December 2019 (UTC)
 * I am a native speaker, but I must admit that no well-known examples come to mind. Names such as Smith Brothers' Motor Company (imaginary example) surely exist, but I can't think of any off hand. Rosbif73 (talk) 08:00, 11 December 2019 (UTC)

Apostrophe x quotation mark
The first sentence of the article starts "The apostrophe (' or ’)..." However, when I copy the second character from inside the brackets into the Wikipedia search field, I get redirected to an article on quotation mark. So is the second character an apostrophe or a single quotation mark? --Jan Kameníček (talk) 15:24, 9 April 2020 (UTC)
 * It is both. The glyph that looks like a little 9 superscript has two principal uses: apostrophe and closing single quotation mark. The 'typewriter apostrophe' has these two, and as a prime (symbol), as an abbreviation for foot (length), and maybe more. But this article is about the apostrophe, its uses and abuses. It is not about the symbol itself. See also template:Navbox punctuation and template:Typography terms. --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 20:02, 9 April 2020 (UTC)
 * So I reworked the redirect into a disambiguation page. --Jan Kameníček (talk) 09:54, 11 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Good point. For the same reason, I have just changed the target of ' to ' (disambiguation). It may be disputed of course! --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 12:04, 11 April 2020 (UTC)

Move discussion in progress
There is a move discussion in progress on Talk:' (disambiguation) which affects this page. Please participate on that page and not in this talk page section. Thank you. —RMCD bot 10:30, 13 April 2020 (UTC)

Left out a city
Lee's Summit, MO is spelled with an apostrophe. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2600:1700:18B0:7390:A9C2:99F5:A8B1:2E4E (talk) 02:46, 3 May 2020 (UTC)

Greengrocer's apostrophes
Here's another sign, which I like better than the one in the article:

If you also like it better, then please feel free to swap this one into the article. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:45, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

Is using it to designate letter plurals really proper?

 * The marking of plurals of individual characters (e.g. p's and q's).

While this is commonly done, I'm pretty sure that's grammatically incorrect. I believe it would be more accurate to capitalise the letter (in the case of a vowel) or spell it out (pees and cues). Zombiewizard45 (talk) 19:44, 7 May 2020 (UTC)
 * The line you quoted is in the Overview section. You can find more details about how this rule varies according to style guide in the section on Use in forming some plurals. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Seberle (talk • contribs) 02:41, 11 May 2020 (UTC)
 * I think that spelling out the sound of the letter's name is confusing. (Also, would it be "cue" or "queue" or "kyu" or something else?) WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:48, 21 June 2020 (UTC)
 * Me too. "Watch your pees and queues"… and keep your zipper shut when not in use. :-P — I don't see why it would be incorrect, grammatically or otherwise, to watch one's p's and q's, bar one's t's and dot one's i's (not one's [Earl Grey] teas or [golf] tees and [goggle-]eyes, as spelling-out would have it). — Tonymec (talk) 03:58, 22 June 2020 (UTC)
 * English has no equivalent of the Academie Française that declares what is correct and what is not. Dictionaries tend to record significant real world usage, even if your English teacher would regard it as illiterate. So we look to style guides for advice on how to deal with these exceptions. Mainly they say that plurals of single lower-case letters may use an apostrophe for clarity. So Ps and Qs, but also p's and q's. If it really offends your eye, I guess that (in the privacy of your own home) you could use the grapheme notation to write dot your $⟨i⟩$s and cross your $⟨t⟩$s. --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 09:25, 22 June 2020 (UTC)


 * The trouble with apostrophe omission and with extra apostrophes in plural contexts is that misuse makes comprehension bumpy. An omitted or extra apostrophe forces one to pay brief attention, not to what is meant, but to how it is rendered. Opponents of the apostrophe point out, correctly, that apostrophe omission does not usually result in misunderstanding. The trouble is that it slows down understanding.  If, in my first sentence, I had written of "extra apostrophe's in plural contexts", wouldn’t the superfluous apostrophe have given you pause? Writing at its best is invisible.


 * It should be possible to devise a proper study of whether apostrophe misuse actually slows down the average reader of English. If it doesn’t, I’ll be happy to concede my minority status: misuse of apostrophes is, as Harbeck claims, "a fashion infraction on the level of wearing white after Labor Day or socks with sandals."


 * Of course, given the many variables — some random — that affect reading speed, such a study would require a large sample. It might also uncover regional variations.


 * Peter Brown (talk) 21:24, 20 August 2020 (UTC)

Wrongo
FWIW, you're correct that "the neighbours's garden" isn't used, but "the Jones's garden" is. That's standard, and "Sis's unspeakable proclivities" and so on, while "Charles's unfortunate marriage" is still seen sometimes I believe, although not that often. I don't know what the rule is... maybe single syllable words ending in s get the possesive apostrophe... "Les's peculiar friend"... "Baba Ram Das's remarkable self-assurance"... I dunno. But its wrong to imply that this never done. Herostratus (talk) 22:18, 19 August 2020 (UTC)


 * The long explanation is in the article but a simple rule of thumb is this: if you would say "Charlesez marriage", then you should write "Charles's marriage". You probably wouldn't say "Achillesez heel". --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 14:03, 20 August 2020 (UTC)
 * But to come back to your concluding sentence, where does the article say that "it is never done"? There are only six "never"s in the article, none of which tell you what you should or should not do. The closest we come to being prescriptive is to refer to what external style guides say. If you don't like a style guide that says use 's only with singular nouns and s' only with plurals, then no doubt you can find one that doesn't say that and adopt it as your guiding light. Encylopedias, like dictionaries, report what exists not what should [or should not] exist. Wikipedia has the additional constraint that we may only report what a reliable source says exists, no matter what abominations we editors observe in print. Or socks with sandals, for that matter.--John Maynard Friedman (talk) 22:58, 20 August 2020 (UTC)

Achilles heel
It isn't clear from your edit whether The Economist style guide is making a general point, one that would also omit the apostrophe in "Achilles' battle with Hector" or whether it is peculiar to "Achilles' heel". In the latter case, it's doubtful that the matter is sufficiently notable to be mentioned. The lead of the Wikipedia article Achilles' Heel notes that the apostrophe may be omitted, citing the Cambridge Dictionary. Following the dictionary, I think that "Achilles heel" is simply a noun; it need not be decomposed, calling "Achilles" an adjective in this case.

Peter Brown (talk) 00:09, 21 September 2020 (UTC)


 * They don't make a general principle on Achilles. Their only general principle is that singular nouns take 's in the possessive, irrespective of their terminal letter. Ditto plural nouns like children. Plural nouns that take a singular verb, like Reuters, s' like any other plural. "Try to avoid Texas's, Congress's and all such formations which are horrible to read silently, and even worse aloud".


 * Remember that it is written as advice to journalists on producing good copy, not a grammar book. You don't get to write for The Economist if you need grammar lessons.


 * I got it on special for my Kindle, I'm not so fixated as to buy an expensive hard copy! --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 09:01, 21 September 2020 (UTC)

"All other possessive pronouns ending in s" (other than its) vs. "Most other possessive pronouns and adjectives ending in s"
you reverted "Most other possessive pronouns and adjectives ending in s do take an apostrophe" to "All other possessive pronouns ending in s do take an apostrophe" without explanation; your edit summary just points out, correctly, that its can be a contraction of it has. I have changed the text back; please explain why my wording was inappropriate. I noted that his is both a possessive pronoun and a possessive adjective ending in s with no apostrophe. Also, hers, yours and theirs are possessive pronouns (though not adjectives) ending in s with no apostrophe.

Peter Brown (talk) 20:00, 23 March 2021 (UTC)
 * In Apostrophe the first line is "No apostrophe is used in the following possessive pronouns and adjectives: yours, his, hers, ours, its, theirs, and whose." which includes his and all other pronouns that do not use an apostrophe. It is then correct to say "All other possessive pronouns ending in s do take an apostrophe", "all other" referring to those not already mentioned before it in this section. The examples in this section (one's; everyone's; somebody's, nobody else's) are pronouns, not adjectives. Reywas92Talk 20:58, 23 March 2021 (UTC)


 * I think there is some confusion about "all others ending in s" because the sentence is followed by a colon, and then a list of words that certainly do not end in 's': one's; everyone's; somebody's, nobody else's, etc. (the don't end in s until the -s is added). There sure seems to be something wrong with the wording or what is trying to be said. As I can't think of any pronouns ending in s other than in the initial list I am wondering if what was meant was "All pronouns that don't end in s..."Spitzak (talk) 22:27, 23 March 2021 (UTC)


 * Sorry, I'm still confused by the most recent edit. Can you give an example of a possessive pronoun that does not end in 's'? It still says 'All other possessive pronouns ending in s do take an apostrophe: one's; everyone's; somebody's, nobody else's, etc.' My first impression is that *none* of those end in s ("one" ends with 'e', etc). But I guess you mean they all end with 's? But then I cannot figure out what word is not in the first list that is a possessive pronoun that does not end in 's'.Spitzak (talk) 04:41, 24 March 2021 (UTC)

Plurals of abbreviations
There are some who hold that it is correct to use an apostrophe between an abbreviation and s for the plural, e.g. photo's. This does not excuse using one for a contraction, e.g. messrs not messr's. Stub Mandrel (talk) 19:30, 16 October 2021 (UTC)
 * See response to previous section. Same answer. --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 20:16, 16 October 2021 (UTC)

Apostrophe = Plural
The section where it talks about "Use in forming some plurals" (or something like that) seems kind of biased...

It's not preferred by most style guides to not use the apostrophe in years (i.e. "1960's), it's wrong to use the apostrophe there, and in any other case (excluding lowercase letters, of course).

The section seems like it was written by someone who had done this mistake and been corrected or something, I don't know. I think the section needs a bit more emphasis on the facts, not what's generally preferred. Plus, you look around the internet, most people write it like this.

I'm still a "rookie editor", so this might be too advanced for me to edit haha, but I just thought I'd let everyone know. SillyBilly3 (talk) 12:00, 7 September 2021 (UTC)


 * It is not the function of Wikipedia to tell visitors what they should or should not do, WP: Wikipedia is not a grammar book. Certainly we can point readers at style guides and summarise what they say. As editors, our writing should comply with Wikipedia's own WP: Manual of style, which certainly says that it wrong. John Maynard Friedman (talk) 13:14, 7 September 2021 (UTC)


 * SillyBilly3 and John: I think that this section of the article would benefit from a matrix summarizing what the style manuals etc. have to say, at a glance:
 * The first column could hold the titles of the manuals (Wikipedia's; sector guides such as APA style for academia, or OSCOLA for law; and regional guides such as those used in the UK (e.g. Fowler's), USA (e.g. Chicago's), Canada (Fee's guide), India, etc. Wikipedia's list of style guides should help identify the key regions in the world. There could be some examples of overviews of the language that are deliberately not style guides but helpful perspectives, such as Oxford's.
 * The next column or two could feature the publication date and country.
 * Remaining columns could mostly comprise the various types of apostrophe of plurality, one column each. These include apostrophes after symbols, numbers, letters, family names, and acronyms.
 * There could also be a final column for any exceptions identified by the guide, such as how to handle the phrase "do's and don'ts".
 * This seems a nice project for some Wiki editor with several notable style manuals to hand! Mebden (talk) 14:14, 30 October 2021 (UTC)

Reywas92: I noticed that you've undone my work from today three times (twice directly, once by manual editing), while other users (Rosbif73 and Peter M. Brown) immediately tried to undo your undoing. You seem insistent that the text added today is removed. However, I agree with Peter's observation (in his edit from today) that you'd made "Extensive deletion of sourced claims. Use the talk page to argue that the sources are not reliable or that they provide insufficient support." So I've restored the sourced claims for now (and added a citation of the second edition of the work in question), and I hope that you'll choose to use the space here for discussion before deleting the new text a fourth time.

BTW the URL you cited while trying to justify the deletion was for a particular style guide, produced locally for use "by staff" and not the public; this guide is not a scholarly work in the league of the broad overview you deleted mention of. On page 1, your style guide makes this explicit: "The style guide is not intended for public or external use, and does not purport to compete with OUP’s professional writing guides and dictionaries."

Separately, please note that the new text under Early English practice is more descriptive in that it identifies a vowel and four consonants of key interest. As you seem to find the text lengthy I've removed one of the two examples. Mebden (talk) 23:59, 30 October 2021 (UTC)


 * The problem here is that rather than this section being a concise summary of its current uses, it begins with an excessively long quotation that describes some past uses. This is obscene for this to state that apostrophes should be used in plurals of names: the plural of Jones should never be Jones's, and it's inappropriate for this section to list it as an acceptable example when it is inconsistent with every style guide there has ever been. This point 4 as well as point 5 are already described in Apostrophe and shouldn't be in this section. It is unusual to state "In decade dates, such as the 1980's, although such apostrophe-free forms as the 1980s are widespread" when every style guide says "1980s" is more common and recommended by basically every style guide, even if use of 1980's remains. The wording here is backward; same for point 1 on abbreviations. Reywas92Talk 14:36, 1 November 2021 (UTC)


 * I take your point about #5 already being described, so just now I've ended the quotation earlier and put a hyperlink instead. Thanks.


 * Your argumentation about #4 and the 1980s didn't mention that the source goes on to report that many style guides "favour" the 1980s, which helps ensure scholarly balance here.


 * I wonder whether you really meant to say "every style guide there has ever been", because in fact Jones's is considered perfectly correct if you review the history of modern English. For one example of its appearance in a (historically very significant) style guide, see the second entry on  's in Modern English Usage. It goes without saying that many style guides published more recently recommend Joneses instead.


 * While the popularity of an apostrophe there and in certain other traditional cases has decreased markedly from the late 20th century onwards (a decrease accelerated by a growing number of style guides and most recently web content parroting them), the usage in these areas still has support; e.g. surname apostrophes are still considered a part of the English language, as the Oxford Companion dutifully reports. There might come a day when #4 and #5 can be combined, i.e. it will be said that "Jones's is now non-standard" but I reckon we're at least a generation away from this as of 2021. Meanwhile Wikipedia must describe the apostrophe, not evangelize recent trends in style guides; I think that John Maynard Friedman might be similarly reminding Wikipedia editors, in a related context above, about this distinction. Mebden (talk) 15:53, 2 November 2021 (UTC)
 * Part of the debate above arises because of the convention that we describe changes in chronological order, so historic practice comes first and readers with a short attention span may mislead themselves that obsolete practices are correct. I don't know that we can do anything about that. But conversely I believe that we should certainly record the consensus of modern style guides and I see no problem with introducing the section with this information. Would that help you guys towards a compromise and consensus text? (This is a minefield so I'm keeping well back!) --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 16:34, 2 November 2021 (UTC)
 * "Jones's" is non-standard, what a joke. What publication is writing "The Smith's are going to visit the Johnson's next week" as if that's standard? "many style guides published more recently recommend Joneses instead" So what is the exception to "many" that doesn't make this "all"? If editions of Modern English Usage described this use (which I can't access so a specific quotation recommending it would be helpful), that should be an expansion of Apostrophe, whereas the other sections should describe what is current. The "As of 2021" wording is also unnecessary as if this is frequently changing year by year. Wikipedia speaks in the present and it's not going to be 2022 and whatever is different.
 * This quotation has "In the phrase do's and don'ts, the apostrophe of plurality occurs in the first word but not the second" as if this is a widely accepted statement of fact without further discussion, but Fowler's Concise Dictionary of Modern English Usage says "You do not need to use an apostrophe to form the plurals of words not usually used as nouns, such as do. It is therefore not necessary to insert apostrophe in the word dos in the phrase dos and don'ts..." The current version is not a "consensus of modern style guides" and shouldn't be presented prominently by itself as it is here. The above suggestion to compare manuals is a good idea, maybe I'll see if my library has some. But having this full quotation from Oxford alone doesn't work. Reywas92Talk 20:52, 2 November 2021 (UTC)
 * Thank you, both. I've had another crack at it just now, to try to address your concerns above. What do you think? Mebden (talk) 03:21, 3 November 2021 (UTC)
 * Thank you, this is a good improvement. I'm still concerned by any suggestion it's acceptable to use an apostrophe for plural names. When is the last time any style guide actually permitted this, or publications did so, rather than the Companion describing its atypical use by people not following one? It must be alone in implying this "remains legitimate." Reywas92Talk 04:31, 3 November 2021 (UTC)
 * Thank you, this is a good improvement. I'm still concerned by any suggestion it's acceptable to use an apostrophe for plural names. When is the last time any style guide actually permitted this, or publications did so, rather than the Companion describing its atypical use by people not following one? It must be alone in implying this "remains legitimate." Reywas92Talk 04:31, 3 November 2021 (UTC)


 * Good question. I can't think of any after the 1990s off the top of my head! So I've edited this subsection just now -- seem ok? Going forwards I've also contacted the Companion a moment ago to flag this possible issue to them for any next edition, and to seek advice. It's a cold call and they might be busy in the current academic term (which runs until next month) but I think we now have a better balance regardless. If you see anything else please say, and thanks for the discussion. Mebden (talk) 13:30, 3 November 2021 (UTC)

Same phenomenon in Finnish listed three times
The same phenomenon in Finnish, that "k" between two similar vowels becomes an apostrophe when inflected, is listed three times: as elision, as a glottal stop, and as miscellaneous use. J I P &#124; Talk 01:09, 6 February 2022 (UTC)

Edit by
's exposition is hard to follow. The fact that "one dollar's worth of candy" means "the amount of candy that can be purchased with one dollar" is taken to be an example of "an ordinary possessive use." What's ordinary about it? The longer phrase contains concepts like purchasing that do not appear in the phrase being explained. The latest version by does not have this problem — the phrase with the apostrophe (the cat's whiskers) is represented as equivalent to a  phrase (the whiskers of the cat) with no noun or verb that doesn't appear in the former. Peter Brown (talk) 03:50, 29 April 2021 (UTC)


 * Hi, let me know if we can make it easier to follow. Existing: "a dollar's worth" and "For example, one hour's respite means a respite of one hour (exactly as the cat's whiskers means the whiskers of the cat)." Proposed: "For example, one hour's time means a time period of one hour and one dollar's worth of candy means the amount of candy that can be purchased with one dollar. One says one month's salary instead of one month salary; however one may say either a five day hike or a five days' hike." In retrospect I hadn't added the italics yet so that may be part of the confusion. Cheers, Facts707 (talk) 14:00, 29 April 2021 (UTC)
 * This misunderstanding would be resolved if the whole section headed "Time, money, and similar" had referenced the general point (made in the section headed "Possessive Apostrophe") that the name 'possessive' is a misleading narrowing of the more strictly correct 'genitive', meaning possession, source, origin or derivation. So the genitive case is used because the 'worth' derives from 'one dollar', even though it is not owned by 'one dollar'. The genitive case can usually be rephrased by using the preposition 'of', whether or not there is any possession. For instance, "one dollar's worth of candy" can be expressed as "candy with a worth of one dollar". BobBriscoe (talk) 09:25, 18 March 2022 (UTC)

'Three months pregnant' not an exception?
"Exceptions are accounted for in the same way: three months pregnant (in modern usage, one says neither pregnant of three months, nor one month(')s pregnant)." Surely this whole sentence at the end of "Time, money, and similar" is incorrect in two respects:
 * 1) Isn't this an irrelevance (or at best a misconception) not an exception. Surely 'three months pregnant' is just an adjectival phrase - an adjective qualified by a plural noun used as a quantifier. The singular "one month pregnant" surely helps to prove that the 's' on 'nine months' is just a plural, not a genitive. As in the similar quantifying modifiers 'One hour early'; 'two kilos overweight'; 'six months dead'; 'two hours late'; 'forty years old'; 'three weeks overdue' used as examples in this Stack Exchange answer. Incidentally, that article explains an exception to a different rule: that quantifying modifiers are not linked by hyphens contrary to the normal rule for when a noun modifies an adjective.
 * 2) Even if my first argument is wrong, the quoted sentence is not "accounted for in the same way" because, unlike anything preceding it, it does not use an apostrophe.

On the question of what to do with this sentence, assuming my first point is correct, I would have to bow to the knowledge of those who know Wikipedia's style better than I. It could just be deleted as irrelevant. Or it could be kept as an example of a common misconception, with an explanation that this is just a plural 's'. BobBriscoe (talk) 10:40, 18 March 2022 (UTC)
 * Agree, this isn't an exception, it's a totally different usage. That sentence should be removed. Reywas92Talk 13:32, 18 March 2022 (UTC)

math
should we make a section about an apostraphe in math? y'know, the f' (f prime). it represents transformed coordinates, derivatives and more. (this is probably a stupid idea) Jacob851215.64 (talk) 04:17, 19 March 2022 (UTC)
 * No, it is not a stupid idea. It is sort of described at the section 	Apostrophe, where there is a bit about the typist's apostrophe being used for other things but there is no explicit section about common misuses (such as instead of the prime symbol. I'll have a look later on to see where it might fit nicely. --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 14:14, 19 March 2022 (UTC)
 * Done, see Apostrophe. --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 22:51, 19 March 2022 (UTC) revised after another editor shortened the subsection title. --09:25, 20 March 2022 (UTC)

Seldom if ever?
In an edit note, wrote that he wanted to add that the use of the typewriter apostrophe and double quote for prime and double prime is common because they are available on standard keyboards; the typographic characters are not, so they're seldom if ever used for prime and double prime. So first of course that would need a citation, per WP:OR. Second, anyone writing serious in math notation is most likely to use TeX, LaTeX, or equivalent, which supports the prime symbols natively. As the article notes, MsWord etc is very likely to auto-correct to, which is going to look very amateurish indeed. --𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 14:47, 23 September 2022 (UTC)
 * I don't know about that, I greatly prefer the "autocorrected" one, in that the quotes are slanted similar to the prime symbols, and I doubt I am alone. The problem is that "autocorrect" can sometimes change the apostrophe into the left curly apostrophe, which does look wrong. That was why I attempted to change the text, as I suspect quite a few people have no problem with the typographic characters being used and even rely on their word processor to do this conversion. It is still the wrong symbol though.Spitzak (talk) 15:09, 23 September 2022 (UTC)

The "possessive" case needs to be corrected all over Wikipedia (including this article)
So, as this very article points out, calling the 's a possessive case is misleading, since it is indeed the genetive case. And where is this written? In the session which explains that the apostrophe may be used to indicate the... possessive case. I thought it would be as easy as changing the section title, but there are links everywhere to possessive case pages and sections in Wikipedia.

Wikipedia, of course, isn't the arbitrer of right and wrong. But if there are credible references that the use of "possessive case" nomenclature is an error, i.e., if it is not considered a name that is already recognized, it should be changed, and a possessive case section should only point out that it is a misnomer applied to the genitive case. ~victorsouza (talk) 11:41, 16 October 2022 (UTC)
 * According to the lead of Possessive,
 * "The concepts of possessive forms and genitive forms are sometimes conflated, although they are not exactly the same. The genitive form, which does not exist in modern English as a productive inflection outside of pronouns, [...]"
 * so you may well be right but the question has become what our American friends would call moot. --𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 13:35, 16 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Anyway, everybody knows what possessive case means and nobody has heard of genitive case. We're a popular encyclopedia serving the general public, and if possible we use commonly-understood terms in preference to technical ones. Herostratus (talk) 14:08, 16 October 2022 (UTC)