Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2015 August 16

= August 16 =

Genitive apostrophe
Why is there no genitive apostrophe in "King James Bible" (James')?  Rex Sueciæ ✎ 07:15, 16 August 2015 (UTC)


 * It was named after him; it didn't belong to him. cf. Queen Elizabeth Hospital etc.--Shantavira|feed me 07:58, 16 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Yes, it was not his Bible, just a translation of it. KägeTorä - (影虎)  ( もしもし！ ) 09:20, 16 August 2015 (UTC)
 * OK! Thanks. I do realise all that of course. The question was more semantic. The Bible translations in Swedish are also named after kings but have a geniteve -s, e.g. sv:Gustav Vasas bibel and sv:Karl XII:s bibel. So the languages treat the construction differently.  Rex Sueciæ ✎ 10:05, 16 August 2015 (UTC)
 * See King James Version for the details. As with most Bible translations of the era, it doesn't have an "official" name (apart from "The Holy Bible").  It was first referred to as "King James's Bible" (with possessive) in 1797, "the authorized version" in 1801, and "the King James Bible" (no possessive) in 1856. Tevildo (talk) 23:07, 16 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Thank you Tevildo! Very interesting. I must have missed that paragraph in the article. So historically there has been a possessive form also in English in these cases. Thank you all!  Rex Sueciæ ✎ 06:09, 17 August 2015 (UTC)