I was wondering how to write the possessive form of a proper noun that is already in a possessive form (confusing, I know...) My company's name is Tuc's Contracting. If I were to write the possessive form of that, it would be Tuc's Contracting's. My question is if I were to leave off the "Contracting's" part, how would I write the possessive form of Tuc's (which is a proper noun already in a possessive form...HELP!)  The proper noun is not “Tuc” it is “Tuc’s” so that is where I am confused… Tuc's? Tucs'? Tuc's'? The proper noun is not “Tuc” it is “Tuc’s” so that is where I am confused… None of these seem right to me...And that is why I am seeking your expertise!  Thank you :)
46485
If the cricket ground Lord's is a possessive, what if you want to describe something belonging to Lord's? Would you say:     I was very impressed by Lord's's customer services.   It doesn't look right, so what is the correct way of writing it?
91993
I thought I'd post this as it illustrates a problem often encountered on ELU.     In structures such as 'football manager', is 'football' a modifier or   a complement of the head noun?   I've seen both terms used as if there were only one possible correct answer. However, I've come across widely differing definitions of both 'modify' and 'complement' as used in grammar. I believe that people stating baldly that this is either one or the other are assuming a grammar that they prefer, rather than giving a balanced overview.  Notice that I intend this question to explore the usage/s of the term 'modify' and of the term 'complement' in this context. There may be overlap with the question of which word-class 'football' fits into, but that decision hardly answers the question.
57199
Where did the practice of using apostrophes for possessive nouns but not pronouns originate?  For example, possessive nouns (both proper and common) are written with a apostrophe before the final s:        Bill’s, not Bills   Sarah’s, not Sarahs   the bear’s, not the bears   the lizard’s, not the lizards      On the other hand, several possessive pronouns do not have apostrophes before the s:        his, not hi’s   hers, not her’s   its, not it’s   theirs, not their’s   ours, not our’s   yours, not your’s      When and where did this usage originate? Was there any technical advantage of this usage?
71458
I would like to write "In "[article name]," [author] states such and such." However, in this particular instance, [article name] ends in a question mark. How should I punctuate this?   "In "Can Pigs Fly," Bacon states..." "In "Can Pigs Fly?" Bacon states..." "In "Can Pigs Fly?," Bacon states..."   Or something else?  Thank you!
83391
If I was to label something      The Poets and Painters' Distillery    do I only apply the possessive apostrophe after 'Painters' as in the text written above, or do I also need to apply one to 'Poets' so that it becomes      The Poets' and Painters' Distillery ?    I'm thinking the former is correct, but cannot be too sure.
5400
I’ve been looking over what has been posted regarding the use of ’s.   I used to be a Technical Writer (years ago). The title of one of our training documents was Users’ Guide.  Once, a coworker said every time he saw that title he expected users to start coming.    Never made any sense to me, but I have to admit that the majority of us didn't understand the use of s’ in place of ’s.  What is the difference?
3778
I was trying to write “I was using the lecture's flow of logic”, as to say that I was following the logic that was in the lecture. But I am corrected by a spell-checker.   I tried to google it, but this leads me to another much more silly question. How do you call that “..'s” that designates ownership / association? I really did try to google it, but since “'s” is such a bad search term, and any formation for "What do you call that 's you add to designate ownership" I could think of, yielded anything but the answer I was looking for.   So my question is twofold.    What is the name of that 's thing? I guess it is not the "ownership 's" :) Is it perhaps called officially the ‘possessive s’? Is saying "lecture's" (pertaining to the lecture) valid English grammar? Or is it valid grammar but people just don't say it this way?
78149
In a recent thread, it was recommended that Academies' Trust be written as I just have done:      Academies' Trust. Normal possessive apostrophe rules apply.   If I accept this traditional style, I might well end up writing something like:     Academies' Trusts include the Academies Enterprise Trust, the Leigh   Academies Trust, the Aspirations Academies Trust, and The Kemnal   Academies Trust.   Should consistency of style override traditional apostrophe rules in this case?
18450
My colleagues are in the design department of a given product, and when asked to add that information to the e-mail signature, they have written:     ProductName's Design   I'm objecting that the usage of the Saxon genitive there is incorrect, because the product is neither a person or animal owning anything, and Design in this context is not even a property of the product (Maybe I would admit the Saxon genitive in a context like "I think ProductName's design is not fail-safe"), but an activity.  Am I right? ^_^  update:  After reading the answers and the comments, I think the issue has been clarified a little bit. In this case ProductName is acting as an adjective qualifying Design [Department], so that's the actual reason for not using the genitive case (rather than the product being a "weak entity" unable to possess things, that is merely an stylistic rule of thumb).
8437
What is the possessive of a noun ending in ‑s?  Are these both right, or is the second one wrong?   the boys' books the boss' car
41771
I wonder whether there are rules or guidelines regarding plural nouns in nominal compounds. For example a compound university students list. If there are many lists and many universities is it grammatically correct to say universities students lists? Must all elements be in the plural form or can some be left in singular, even though the meaning is plural? I've seen an expression universities student lists; is it correct?
87650
Was drafting an email and my senior wanted to type "Planting saplings is our way of saying we care for our Nature". I felt that's wrong English. Shouldn't it be "we care for Nature"? (it makes it a bit impersonal to remove the 'our', but if 'our nature' isn't right, can the cuteness factor of mentioning 'our nature' be preserved?. Which is correct?)
47860
I am writing a letter to apply for entry into a graduate-level university program through my company. I am struggling on how to write the name of the company in the letter. The company's trademark is to write the name in capital letters (and we are encouraged to do so in work communication) but this seems out of place to me in the formal letter.  Example:   "... to apply for entry to the MYCORP Leadership program beginning in..." "... to apply for entry to the Mycorp Leadership program beginning in..."   I'm currently leaning toward option #2 even though this isn't consistent with the company's preferred branding.
2856
How compelled should I feel to use non-contracted forms (do not rather than don't and so on) when writing in a rather formal text, say an academic paper? In one case I am afraid to seem too stilted, in the other, too casual. Are there good guidelines?  And are there differences in this regard between British and American English?  (In this  there was not much more than "Contractions are more frequent in informal than formal contexts".)
3107
Although Children's books is what everybody says, I would like to understand why the genitive case is applied in such case.  If I write books for children, children is an adjective here; not the owners of my book! The word "children" just defines or characterizes the type of books I write. Therefore, it's an adjective.   So, I understand that genitive/possessive case ("I write children's book")  is incorrect grammar.  My question is: is the genitive case here really accepted as right? If I use "I write children books" (following the grammar principle) as as I say "I write pets books" (books about pets, and not possessions of pets) - would I be incorrect? Why?
60949
Suppose you wanted to place a possessive apostrophe in this sentence: Billy, who goes to my school, favorite game is tag.  I know it's not standard, but I can hear kids (or older) saying an s sound after "school" to make the possession clear. So I'd like to know if this could be written in the way that it's spoken (albeit not spoken in standard English).  Obviously, the sentence could be reworded, but that's not what I'm after.
1859
As  shows, we nearly always use the possessive form of personal pronouns for friend of mine/his/ours/etc.  But when it comes to actual names, we prefer  without the possessive apostrophe. That preference is even more marked with, say, . Not that I think the usage itself is particularly American - it's much the same with .  Personally, I find friend of him grates. In general I've no strong feelings either way as to whether it's friend of Peter or friend of Peter's (though I deplore the possessive in ), but in line with many others, I really don't like the possessive in relation to things like countries.  Why is this?   Edit: Noting an apparent "progression" (pronoun -> person -> nation) marked by reduction in use of the possessive, I checked at a finer "granularity". NGram shows that although it does occur,  virtually "flatlines" against friend of mine. But the bias reduces through of you, of us, and by the time I get to  it's much less extreme. There seems to be something "egocentric" about the double possessive.  Presumably when babies learn to speak, they soon notice that possessive pronouns, possessive apostrophes, and the word "of", all do the same job. Parents would correct a child who says "of mine's", but probably wouldn't even notice the same "redundancy" in "of Peter's". Younger speakers are unlikely to even be talking about something "of America's". Perhaps as we mature we tend to discard the "double possessive" for the more "distant" things that only adults are likely talk about, but we keep it for "closer" people because that's how we spoke when we were younger.  EDIT2 I note that I'm a great fan of him is vanishingly rare compared to ...fan of his, but with ...fan (of John) the double possessive occurs far less often than ...friend (of John's). Usage seems to be affected by the noun before "of" as well as the one after it. This is getting complicated...