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English grammar question

K

Killerme33

Senior member
I turned in an English paper and the professor returned it with corrections. She crossed out the apostrophe in the following sentence. Word spell check says to put the apostrophe back in. Who is right?

...a few minutes' walk from...
 
Do you say:

A) It's all in a day's work.

or

B) It's all in a days work.

You two "no apostrophe" people better answer B.

I say your Professor is wrong.

Originally posted by: FleshLight
minutes does not possess the walk.
Click to expand...

Does the day not possess the work in my example? Let me replace it with a tangible object.

A) Reality is all in the mind's eye.

or

B) Reality is all in the minds eye.

DURRR people..
 
Originally posted by: jw0ollard
Do you say:

A) It's all in a day's work.

or

B) It's all in a days work.

You two "no apostrophe" people better answer B.

I say your Professor is wrong.
Click to expand...

🙁

They don't teach people correct grammar anymore. 🙁
 
Originally posted by: jw0ollard
Do you say:

A) It's all in a day's work.

or

B) It's all in a days work.

You two "no apostrophe" people better answer B.

I say your Professor is wrong.
Click to expand...

It's all in a day's work.

It is all in a day is work.

It should be B.
 
Originally posted by: SoundTheSurrender
Originally posted by: jw0ollard
Do you say:

A) It's all in a day's work.

or

B) It's all in a days work.

You two "no apostrophe" people better answer B.

I say your Professor is wrong.
Click to expand...

It's all in a day's work.

It is all in a day is work.

It should be B.
Click to expand...

WTF are you smoking??? Day is possessive of work. That's not a contraction, retard.
 
Originally posted by: jw0ollard

Does the day not possess the work in my example? Let me replace it with a tangible object.
Click to expand...

The duration describes the verb. It is an easy walk. It is not an easy's walk. Your second example is out of this world
 
Originally posted by: LS20
Originally posted by: jw0ollard

Does the day not possess the work in my example? Let me replace it with a tangible object.
Click to expand...

The duration describes the verb. It is an easy walk. It is not an easy's walk. Your second example is out of this world
Click to expand...

For expressions of time and measurement, the possessive is shown with an apostrophe -s: "one dollar's worth," "two dollars' worth," "a hard day's night," "two years' experience," "an evening's entertainment," and "two weeks' notice"

Edit: Fuck you. Look up "mind's eye" if you have to. Idiot.

Edit2: Another quote:
TIME AND MEASURE APOSTROPHES indicate time value and measurement in certain uses. Again, the location of the apostrophe can be determined by rephrasing, this time using the word of.

the society of today
today's society

the heat of the summer
the summer's heat

the worth of ten dollars
ten dollars' worth
Click to expand...
 
Originally posted by: Killerme33
...a few minutes' walk from...
Click to expand...

It's causing confusion because it can be taken in both ways:

A) A few minute walk from....


B) A few minutes OF WALK (thus 'a few minutes' walk)

Apostrophe or not, both can be correct.
 
Originally posted by: SoundTheSurrender
Originally posted by: jw0ollard
Do you say:

A) It's all in a day's work.

or

B) It's all in a days work.

You two "no apostrophe" people better answer B.

I say your Professor is wrong.
Click to expand...

It's all in a day's work.

It is all in a day is work.

It should be B.
Click to expand...

The work belongs to the day, but the walk does not belong to the minutes. It should be A.

😛
 
Originally posted by: jw0ollard


For expressions of time and measurement, the possessive is shown with an apostrophe -s: "one dollar's worth," "two dollars' worth," "a hard day's night," "two years' experience," "an evening's entertainment," and "two weeks' notice"

Edit: Fuck you. Look up "mind's eye" if you have to. Idiot.
Click to expand...

Reality is what's observed through the eyes and interpreted in the mind. So it is as if the eyes are the mind's. So in that situation, the use of apostrophe is appropriate. However, that situation is not analogous to the first.

So touchy. Defensive much?
 
If you guys really want to know why this is so you should study some more traditional Indo-European grammar. Latin is a simple one to start out with. It's "all in a day's work". The work does not belong to the day exactly, but in order to express this concept one uses the genitive case. The genitive case is no longer called as such in English, but the case is still represented with the enclitic S which is attached to the end of a word with an apostrophe. The genitive case is used to express both possession and idiomatic phrases that suggest a relationship similar to possession.
 
Originally posted by: Saint Michael
If you guys really want to know why this is so you should study some more traditional Indo-European grammar. Latin is a simple one to start out with. It's "all in a day's work". The work does not belong to the day exactly, but in order to express this concept one uses the genitive case. The genitive case is no longer called as such in English, but the case is still represented with the enclitic S which is attached to the end of a word with an apostrophe. The genitive case is used to express both possession and idiomatic phrases that suggest a relationship similar to possession.
Click to expand...

Yes. Thank you. I was very haughty with my responses and realized afterward that even though it's not technically possessive, I didn't have any idea what to call it, either. 🙂

Looking it up, the best I could come up with was "time and measurement apostrophes"... hahaha.
 
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