# EN: l'impact des vulnérabilités - Possessif des objets inanimés, complément du nom



## benji1000

Hello all,

I have a question regarding the _'s_ which expresses possession. Here is my excerpt to be translated:


> une vision métier de l'impact des vulnérabilités



I would translate it by:


> a business vision of *the impact of the vulnerabilities*



But one of my colleagues suggests:


> a business vision of *the vulnerabilities' impact*



Although his translation looks good compared to mine, which has two "of the", I'm not sure it's correct. For me, the _'s_ expresses possession for humans, not for ideas or concept. For me, we can say "It's Tom's car." but not "It's the vulnerabilities' impact", since a vulnerability isn't a human and therefore cannot own anything.

Which one of us is right? Which translation do you think would suit best the French sentence here?

Thank you for your help!


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## jekoh

's is most definitely not limited to possesion by humans. Where did you get that from?


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## benji1000

I don't know, maybe a class or something, who knows where that came from. Perhaps just my imagination!

So it's totally OK to use it for abstract concepts, like the one in this situation (vulnerabilities' impact)?


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## Quaeitur

There used to be some reticence at using the possessive 's with inanimate object. But

this is not a set rule (and is no longer touted about that much)
and the solution was not to turn _the car's radio_ into _the radio of the car_ but into _the car radio_.
There's an interesting discussion about this on this website, including the following excerpt (emphasis mine)
_Many writers consider it bad form to use apostrophe -s possessives with pieces of furniture and buildings or inanimate objects in general. Instead of "the desk's edge" (according to many authorities), we should write "the edge of the desk" and instead of "the hotel's windows" we should write "the windows of the hotel." In fact, *we would probably avoid the possessive altogether and use the noun as an attributive*: "the hotel windows." *This rule (if, in fact, it is one) is no longer universally endorsed*. We would not say "the radio of that car" instead of "that car's radio" (or the "car radio") and we would not write "the desire of my heart" instead of "my heart's desire._​Edited to add: There's also a discussion about this on the English Only forum : http://forum.wordreference.com/showthread.php?t=235314&highlight=saxon+genitive_

_


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## benji1000

That's indeed very interesting, I didn't know this point of grammar was discussed. So I'm not crazy and I didn't imagine that, maybe a teacher told me about it or I read about it. Great!

In fact, I used "the car radio" type of sentence for other parts of the document I have to translate, so I don't know why I didn't think of that for this sentence. I think I'm going to use "the vulnerabilities impact".

Thank you for your help  I'm still open for suggestions if someone has something to add.


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## jekoh

In other words, using apostrophe -s possessives with inanimate objects is something up with which they will not put.




Quaeitur said:


> There used to be some reticence at using the possessive 's with inanimate object. But
> 
> this is not a set rule (and is no longer touted about that much)
> and the solution was not to turn _the car's radio_ into _the radio of the car_ but into _the car radio_.


Would this solution work here, though?

Imagine vulnerability would be in the singular, the sentence would then be :

A business vision of *the vulnerability impact.*

It seems to me that it says something different.


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## benji1000

Well yeah, if you change the sentence, it says something different ^^ but in the context of the document I have to translate, it makes more sense to talk about vulnerabilities (plural), and even impacts (plural), actually.


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## jekoh

A business vision of *the vulnerability impact *
say something different from
A business vision of *the vulnerability's impact*
is what I'm saying.

Of course the same would be true in the plural, but I chose to put it in the singular because in the plural the two are pronounced the same !


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## benji1000

_Au contraire_, it's the whole point of what Quaeitur said and the links she provided. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think _the vulnerability impact_ and _the vulnerability's impact_ do say the same thing, exactly like _the hotel windows_ and _the hotel's windows_ say the same thing. For a time, English scholars had endorsed the first writting (without the possessive -s), but not any more. But that doesn't mean we should never use the rule.

From what I understand, all in all, both are correct and say the same thing, it's just a choice that relies on the speaker's preference (or the speaker preference!).


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## atcheque

Bonjour,

Voir aussi : EN: of / 's (genitive) / adjective - how to translate the possessive "de"


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## jekoh

benji1000 said:


> _Au contraire_, it's the whole point of what Quaeitur said and the links she provided. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think _the vulnerability impact_ and _the vulnerability's impact_ do say the same thing, exactly like _the hotel windows_ and _the hotel's windows_ say the same thing. For a time, English scholars had endorsed the first writting (without the possessive -s), but not any more. But that doesn't mean we should never use the rule.
> 
> From what I understand, all in all, both are correct and say the same thing, it's just a choice that relies on the speaker's preference (or the speaker preference!).


You might want to read the part about _Possessives versus Adjectival Labels_ in the link above. Even in cases where the two are correct, there might be a difference in meaning.


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## benji1000

Good thing you mentionned it, jekoh, I didn't read the full page. Here is the excerpt that's more interesting:


> If you can insert another modifer between the -s word and whatever it modifies, you're probably dealing with a possessive.
> 
> Patriots quarterback Drew Bledsoe threw three touchdown passes. (plural as modifier)
> The Patriots' [new] quarterback, Drew Bledsoe, threw three touchdown passes. (possessive as modifier)



In my case, the impact doesn't belong to the vulnerabilities, it is induced by the vulnerabilities. The modifier is a plural, so I think *the vulnerabilities impact* really suits my needs.


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## jekoh

I don't think you read that correctly.

You seem to have decided that it's not a "possessive as modifier" for the sole reason that the vulnerabilities do not actually have possession of the impact. But possessives, despite the name, have very little to do with possession: my friend's neighbour also does not _belong_ to my friend, yet we still use a possessive.

On the other hand, you can certainly insert other modifiers between "vulnerabilities" and impact, such as "vulnerabilities long-term impact" and what not. So according to that site, "you're probably dealing with a possessive".


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## benji1000

Yeah, I have trouble wrapping my mind around it. So the vulnerabilities' impact?


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