# Possessive - using 's with inanimate nouns



## ed800uk

I'm surprised to find a university's web-site that wants me to stop using the English genitive with inanimates.  Such as, for example, "university".



> When referring to an attribute of an inanimate object, it is inappropriate to use the possessive endings.  An inanimate object such as a chair or a window cannot own anything.  The relationship must be indicated by using a prepositional phrase. Therefore, we speak (and write) not about the chair’s leg but about the *leg of the chair*.
> The preposition “of” introduces a phrase that explains the relationship between the chair and the leg.


It's a serious gap in my education.  I have never heard of this before.

Reference:
http://english.cua.edu/wc3/handouts/Possession.cfm


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## french4beth

Here's another point of view (found here:


> The basis for the rule is that _whose_ is the possessive form of _who_, so strictly ought only to be used when persons are referred to. The problem is that English doesn’t have an equivalent possessive form for _which_ or _that_, so we must either not use one at all, or borrow _whose_. Writers from medieval times onwards have taken the second course, mainly because it leads to smoother prose than the inverted clauses that are required by _of which..._. As the _Merriam Webster Dictionary of English Usage_ remarks, the result is that this is one disputed usage which is more common in the works of good writers than bad ones.


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## mae

Well, that's a new "rule" for me...if you native speakers don't agree with it...Lately I've been going through a lot of grammar books trying to find an answer to my question, and in none of them was such a stament. 
I'll stick to what I've heard and learnt until now...


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## ed800uk

There are implications for other current threads:

Three hour's delay is too long.
Not OK.

It has to be:
A delay of three hours...

I hate the boy's skating on the sidewalk.
OK, because boy is animate.

I hate the top's spinning on the table.
Not OK, because top is inanimate.

It has to become, according to this "rule":
I hate the spinning of the top on this table.  Ouch!


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## mae

ed800uk said:
Three hour's delay is too long.
Not OK.

What about...
Three hours' delay is two long.(like _The hotel was ten minutes'_ _drive from_ _the beach_ or _I'll be here in 3 minutes' time)_
A three-hour delay is too long. 

are they ok?

Bffff....I think it's enough of how English indicates possession for today...


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## ed800uk

french4beth said:
			
		

> Here's another point of view (found here:


Hi, french4beth, unless I'm missing something, I don't think my post has much to do with the "whose/of which" question.

It is about the use of the apostrophe to denote the genitive.

The site I quoted wants us never to use the apostrophe except with nouns that are animate.

The more I read it, the more absurd it seems.

Is this issue related to the link you posted?


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## french4beth

ed800uk said:
			
		

> Hi, french4beth, unless I'm missing something, I don't think my post has much to do with the "whose/of which" question.
> 
> It is about the use of the apostrophe to denote the genitive.
> 
> The site I quoted, wants us never to use the apostrophe except with nouns that are animate.
> 
> The more I read it, the more absurd it seems.
> 
> Is this issue related to the link you posted?


 
The reason that I posted this link is that it discussed the use of inanimate objects + possession using the 'of which' construction (instead of using apostrophes). 

I thought you wanted to discuss the use of the possessive with inanimate objects...  

I have found another link that discussive possessive endings ('s') - scroll down to the blue box that begins: "Many writers consider it bad form to use apostrophe _-s_ possessives with pieces of furniture and buildings or inanimate objects in general" (found here).

I wouldn't have posted the original link if I hadn't thought it was related to your subject - that's way this forum works (only replies relative to threads are encouraged).


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## panjandrum

I have come across this peculiar notion before, but never from any source that I respect


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## la reine victoria

Hello Ed800UK,



> When referring to an attribute of an inanimate object, it is inappropriate to use the possessive endings. An inanimate object such as a chair or a window cannot own anything. The relationship must be indicated by using a prepositional phrase. Therefore, we speak (and write) not about the chair’s leg but about the *leg of the chair*.
> The preposition “of” introduces a phrase that explains the relationship between the chair and the leg.


 

What a strange rule!

If a chair doesn't "own" legs why does it have them?

Admittedly, I would say something like -

"I knocked my shin on the leg of the chair" rather than on the "chair's leg".

Having thought a bit more about that I would be  happier to say 

"I knocked my shin on the chair leg." - no possessive.

But:  "The ventriloquist's *dummy's* head fell off" needs an apostrophe.  A "dummy" is inanimate.

   



LRV


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## ed800uk

About an hour ago, I did what I should have done originally.  I emailed my objections to the author.  I pointed out that, by the same logic, the possessive adjective "its" should never, ever be used.


Look at the chair.  Its leg is wobbly.

Look at the chair.  The leg of it is wobbly.

"Its" always refers to an inanimate object, otherwise we'd be using "his" or "hers".  If "it" can't "own" something then (according to this warped reasoning) we'd need to use the awful construct "of it", in all circumstances.

I'll post the reply, if any.

Ed


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## french4beth

ed800uk said:
			
		

> "Its" always refers to an inanimate object, otherwise we'd be using "his" or "hers". If "it" can't "own" something then (according to this warped reasoning) we'd need to use the awful construct "of it", in all circumstances.


What about animate objects, such as animals (especially if we don't know the animal's gender)? Wouldn't a dog lick its fur, or a bird dip its beak into a water dish (for more on possessive pronouns, see #2 here)?


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## ed800uk

french4beth said:
			
		

> What about animate objects, such as animals (especially if we don't know the animal's gender)?  Wouldn't a dog lick its fur, or a bird dip its beak into a water dish (see #2 here)?



Fair enough.  But does a dog "own" its fur, any more or less than a chair "owns" its leg.  I "own" my possessions, but do I "own" my leg in the same way as the dog or as the chair?

I'm sorry I started this ;-)

Ed


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## Paty_Ita

Hi,

I study English (actually American English) at a university in Italy. I clearly remember our native speaker teacher telling us that we can't use the possessive form with inanimate objects. 

Now I see that some native speakers are bewildered... it seems to me so strange because our teacher insisted on this rule.


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## Thomas Tompion

The fact is that we don't often use 's with a lot of inanimate objects. LRV objects to the chair's leg, as would I. You cant say that this means that *its* is never used, because we use it of some animate objects, like animals. If I say my computer is taking its time - I'm jokingly suggesting that it's animate. Could I say that chair is getting its colour back? Yes I think I could, and without any jocularity, so the question is complicated.

We certainly use 's with time, without suggesting that hours and minutes are animate, but there remain many cases where it would be a little bizarre to us 's.

The steak's juices ran onto the plate  

The car's brakes aren't working  

The carpet's colour has faded  

I wonder what is the guiding principle.


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## Suehil

Having read all these posts two things occur to me.  Firstly, it is very often possible to find an alternative to 'an object's ....' and usually that alternative is more elegant.
Secondly 'its' has no apostrophe, so presumably falls outside this discussion.


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## cuchuflete

> When I stand before thee at the *day's end*, thou shalt see my scars and know that I had my wounds and also my healing.~ Rabindranath Tagore





> Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
> within his bending sickle's compass come;


A gent named Shakespeare




> Now is my *day's* work done; I'll take good breath:
> Rest, sword; thou hast thy fill of blood and death.


Troilus and Cressida, Act 5, Scene 8


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## Thomas Tompion

cuchuflete said:


> A gent named Shakespeare


 
Yes, Cuchu, but Shakespeare often uses personification in the sonnets.


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## cuchuflete

I fully expected someone to mention personification.  Do you see personification in

"...his bending sickle's compass come"?


On a far less serious note, if we accept this "rule" as something other than a strong statement of
stylistic preference, what will we do with "the dog's bollocks"?


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## Matching Mole

They call it the "descriptive genitive" (e.g. "the sun's rays") when it is a property of, or otherwise associated with, an object rather than something it actually owns as such, and the "possessive genitive" when it is truly a genitive ("Matching Mole's computer"). The forms are the same however, either "inflected" (apostrophe "s", e.g. "the moon's reflection") or "periphrastic" (meaning a circumlocution, e.g. "the reflection of the moon").

The problem is that some purist grammarians do not accept that inanimate objects can use the inflected genitive because that they cannot always be said to possess certain attributes ascribed to them ("a day's pay" being a classic example). This strikes me as a rarified view that any sensible mole can ignore. In any case, there are other grammarians who argue that the genitive has always had more uses than the strict possessive.

Having said that, I think English speakers quite often obey the rule about not using the inflected genitive for inanimates; I think you may only be able to learn the skill of when to, and when not to, by experience.


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## Thomas Tompion

cuchuflete said:


> I fully expected someone to mention personification. Do you see personification in
> 
> "...his bending sickle's compass come"?
> 
> 
> On a far less serious note, if we accept this "rule" as something other than a strong statement of
> stylistic preference, what will we do with "the dog's bollocks"?


 
I thought you might ask that, Cuchu.  It depends what you think compass means; I have a picture of outspread hands, like the ends of a pair of compasses; and only people have hands.  I glad you concede the point about love.

I think you will find that dogs, particularly those with bollocks, are not only animate, but often animated.


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## Matching Mole

cuchuflete said:


> I fully expected someone to mention personification.  Do you see personification in
> 
> "...his bending sickle's compass come"?


Yes, but indirectly referenced by "his" ("Time's"). Is that what you mean? Sickle is not a personification it is the metaphorical tool of a personified concept, Time.


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## NancyDunn

Hi ed800uk,

Could this "rule" so forcefully stated in the university's online style guide but so little known by the anglophones in the forum be one of those those English-language rigidities that derive from the centuries when Latin was the language of the educated elite? When anything one could not do in Latin was self-evidently too vulgar for any English emitted by an educated person? No split infinitives, for example. Or no prepositions at the end of a sentence.  

Are we possibly talking about a university where all the fellows on campus would have been literate in Latin a hundred years ago?

I don't remember any discussion of this subject in my favorite arbiter of style (see below), and I don't have one handy to check, but I don't feel the least bit undereducated for not knowing this obviously very esoteric usage preference.

Nowhere I've worked has ever required editors to enforce this particular rule. And so far, no professor, editor, or reviewer has ever ranted about it in the margins of anything I've ever submitted. 

What one institution or publication or company (or socio-economic class) regards as vulgar or absolute misuse, another will regard as current usage. So, when editing or preparing documents to submit for publication, one simply follows the house style, as, for example, detailed on the university's web site. 

When not bound by a house style guide, we can all use our favorite arbiter of style. I prefer, for example, the University of Chicago _Manual of Style,_ which is the generic style guide used by many publishing houses in the United States. 

And when writing in blogs, follow your own conscience, I suppose. Me, I prefer "ten minutes' walk," for its immediacy, to the more verbose and less direct (to my ears) alternatives: "a walk of ten minutes" or "a walk that takes ten minutes," and I doubt that any readers would find the shorter form confusing. 

Keep in mind that a style guide that prohibits the possessive form of an inanimate noun probably also includes a prohibition against contracted forms of verbs (It's going to rain, He's not going along after all...). On the other hand, most people who do marketing writing or any instructional or commercial writing in the US that's intended to seem accessible or "friendly" will have learned to use the contractions. It's all a matter of aiming for the level of language desired by the client or suitable for intended audience. 

The longer I've worked as an editor, the less dogmatic I've became about lagnuage rules, though, of course, I reserve the right to rant about my pet peeves. Elsewhere. (I hope that this lengthy post doesn't qualify as a rant!)

Interesting how much reaction your question/comment has inspired, don't you think?

Cheers,
Nancy


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## cuchuflete

Matching Mole said:


> Yes, but indirectly referenced by "his" ("Time's"). Is that what you mean? Sickle is not a personification it is the metaphorical tool of a personified concept, Time.



I chose that particular quote because I thought it had both a personified noun, Time, and one that was not, sickle.



> Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
> within his bending sickle's compass come;


  I agree that it is the metaphorical tool of a personified concept, but I don't think the personification of the sickle's owner,Time, gives the sickle
any attributes of a person, or makes it an animate object.  A tool becomes animate when put into motion by a person, but it lacks animation when in the toolbox or on the workbench.

We struggled with this subject in another thread recently.  Search for "Arkansas" in the CD forum.
There was a reference in that thread to Maugham's The Razor's Edge.


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## AWordLover

Hi,

I've heard this rule before, or as I would be more likely to say, I've heard this silly rule before.

I think a university should be able to have any foolish rule it wishes in its style guide.


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## LouisaB

I'm surprised and shocked to find a university imposing this ridiculous rule, for it _is_ ridiculous.

The reason it is perfectly acceptable to use 's with an inanimate object is:

1. 's merely indicates a _genitive. _Yes, even in Latin, inanimate objects have a genitive - anyone remember 'mensa, mensa, mensam, _mensae_ etc? The genitive means simply 'of something'. It does not have to indicate possession, as only an animate object can possess. The 'pay of a day' doesn't mean anything's owning anything, but it's still a genitive, so in goes the 's.

2. Many people assume 's _must_ mean a possessive because they don't know the origins of the apostrophe.
_An apostrophe in English only ever indicates one thing - a missing letter._ People get understandably confused over this, because not many people learn Anglo-Saxon these days, so don't know what the missing letter is. They recognise it in 'isn't', 'B'ham', 'I'll' etc but don't realise (and why should they?) that John's book is John's book because the genitive ending in Anglo Saxon was '-es' and the 'e' has been omitted. That's why 'the man's' takes an apostrophe, while 'its' (possessive, as opposed to contraction of 'it is') does not. 'Its' is merely a possessive pronoun, just like 'his' - there's no missing letter, hence no apostrophe.

So it is perfectly acceptable for any noun to take an apostrophe 's' to indicate a genitive - and a missing 'e'. I don't know which university insisted on this rule, but I hope it wasn't one that teaches Anglo-Saxon....

Louisa


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## GreenWhiteBlue

This rule is absolute rubbish.

Highly inflected languages have no problem with a genitive form for a noun that indicates an inanimate object.  The apostrophe-s form in English is a holdover of the genitive form in Old English, which was much more inflected than modern English.  For example, the word _scip_ was the nominative for "ship", while the genitive singular was _scipes -- _which passes into modern English as "ship's".  Anyone who thinks you cannot correctly say "the ship's rudder" or "the ship's captain" does not know how to speak English.

It is equally nonsense to say that _whose_ cannot refer to anything other than a person.  _Whose_ is the possessive of _which_ as well as of _who_, and it is perfectly proper to speak of "a mountain *whose* peak is covered in snow."

This is hardly a new usage.  Here, for example, is a line from the Authorized Version (King James Version) translation of Genesis:
_And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind,* whose* seed is in itself, upon the earth: and it was so._


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## Matching Mole

cuchuflete said:


> I chose that particular quote because I thought it had both a personified noun, Time, and one that was not, sickle.
> 
> I agree that it is the metaphorical tool of a personified concept, but I don't think the personification of the sickle's owner,Time, gives the sickle
> any attributes of a person, or makes it an animate object.  A tool becomes animate when put into motion by a person, but it lacks animation when in the toolbox or on the workbench.


I agree with you in every respect. I didn't mean to say sickle was personified or even animated, although perhaps my first sentence may have given that impression.


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## river

LouisaB said:


> ... but they don't realise (and why should they?) that John's book is John's book because the genitive ending in Anglo Saxon was '-es' and the 'e' has been omitted. That's why 'the man's' takes an apostrophe


 
I thought the apostrophe suppressed the _hi _in _his_ - John his book (John's book); the man his book (the man's book).


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## GreenWhiteBlue

river said:


> I thought the apostrophe suppressed the _hi _in _his_ - John his book (John's book); the man his book (the man's book).


 
Actually, in Old English the genitive of _mann,_ meaning "man", is _mannes._  You can see this in _Beowulf_, in which reference is made to "_ðæs mannes mód_", or "this man's courage."


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## Matching Mole

river said:


> I thought the apostrophe suppressed the _hi _in _his_ - John his book (John's book); the man his book (the man's book).


I have heard this explanation, but it seems to be untenable, given the evidence to the contrary. Wikipedia says it is debated, and although the form "the king his horse" did exist it was only for a short time. It also points out that there should also therefore be "the queen her horse", which would result in 'r and there is no such thing!


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## cuchuflete

Should anyone be in the mood for a game of dueling university grammar rules, the University of Ottowa (Canada) has a site that allows apostrophes for the possesives of objects:

http://www.arts.uottawa.ca/writcent/hypergrammar/nouns.html#possessive nouns

They use _bus's_ in one example.  Those who would argue that buses are animate will be directed to the
parking area.


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## panjandrum

New Fowler's Modern English Usage calls this kind of 's the objective genitive.




Matching Mole said:


> I have heard this explanation, but it seems to be untenable, given the evidence to the contrary. Wikipedia says it is debated, and although the form "the king his horse" did exist it was only for a short time. It also points out that there should also therefore be "the queen her horse", which would result in 'r and there is no such thing!


Somewhere in one of the many, many other threads about possessive forms (look up possessive in the WR dictionary or search for threads with possessive in the title) this issue has been debated.  My last memory was that the "king his horse" theory had been set aside in favour of the Anglo-Saxon -es suffix theory.


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## jimmyy

Paty_Ita said:


> Hi,
> 
> I study English (actually American English) at a university in Italy. I clearly remember our native speaker teacher telling us that we can't use the possessive form with inanimate objects.
> 
> Now I see that some native speakers are bewildered... it seems to me so strange because our teacher insisted on this rule.


 
My British teacher told us the same. The Saxon-Genitive doesn't go with things, and he gave us an example " the table's leg" is wrong.

He boasted once that he is writeing for Cambridge papers, so I assumed he is very knowledgeable.

I have used Murphy's "English Grammar in Use" and there it is stated that with animate nouns the 's can be used, but with things, ideas "we normally use of " for example
the door of the garage
the name of the book

There it is said that 's can be used with organisations (the goverment's decision) and with time expressions.

Unfortunatelly for me as a non-native english speaker preparing for the TOEFL, it is very confusing which rule to follow, which person to listen to, which book to trust...  I just hope that during the exam I won't have to make such choices.


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## panjandrum

jimmyy said:


> [...]
> 
> Unfortunately for me as a non-native english speaker preparing for the TOEFL, it is very confusing which rule to follow, which person to listen to, which book to trust...  I just hope that during the exam I won't have to make such choices.


Native speakers use 's with people, organisations and inanimate things.
BUT - with organisations and inanimate things alternatives to 's are used a lot more often, to the extent that sometimes the 's version sounds very odd.

This is very difficult to explain briefly, so students are given a guideline that avoids the complications. Then in more advanced instruction, more complexity can be introduced.  So the books and the people are not really in conflict - they are addressing different audiences.

In the exam, if you are in doubt, don't use 's.  Find a different way to express what you want to say.
If it is very difficult to find a satisfactory way to express what you want to say without using 's, then go ahead and use it.


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## jimmyy

panjandrum said:


> Native speakers use 's with people, organisations and inanimate things.
> BUT - with organisations and inanimate things alternatives to 's are used a lot more often, to the extent that sometimes the 's version sounds very odd.
> 
> This is very difficult to explain briefly, so students are given a guideline that avoids the complications. Then in more advanced instruction, more complexity can be introduced. So the books and the people are not really in conflict - they are addressing different audiences.
> 
> In the exam, if you are in doubt, don't use 's. Find a different way to express what you want to say.
> If it is very difficult to find a satisfactory way to express what you want to say without using 's, then go ahead and use it.


 
Thank you panjandrum. I would agree with you, only that my english teacher expressley addressed this issue, saying that it's not correct to say the table's leg. And I'm quite sure he didn't mean that only to make it easier for us. On the contrary for many other rules tought on previous english levels he said they were wrong, but not on this one, with the possesive of inanimate objects.

I understand though that this can be a long debated subject, that there is no right or wrong, there are opinions on both side, only that my teacher was categorical in his advice.

Coming from an mathematical backround, I think there is another pshicological chalange to accept that there is no right or wrong, and that in the end you may be examined by someone and you may never know which were the criteria they used to examine you.


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## GreenWhiteBlue

jimmyy said:


> I would agree with you, only that my english teacher expressley addressed this issue, saying that it's not correct to say the table's leg. And I'm quite sure he didn't mean that only to make it easier for us. On the contrary for many other rules tought on previous english levels he said they were wrong, but not on this one, with the possesive of inanimate objects.


In which case your teacher is simply, flatly, and absolutely wrong.

To say "the table's leg" is perfectly grammatical, and educated native speakers use such forms as this all the time.



> I understand though that this can be a long debated subject, that there is no right or wrong,


Nonsense.  There is certainly a "wrong" here, and that "wrong" is to make the absurd claim that one cannot make a genitive for an inanimate object using the "apostrophe-s" form.  As I noted above, there was a genitive for inanimate objects in Anglo-Saxon, and that genitive (which comes down as apostrophe+s) has been consistently and continuously used by native speakers as long as English has existed.  It can be found in Shakespeare, in Milton, in Dryden, and in Samuel Johnson; just about any writer you can name has used this form, and this "rule" has never existed except in the minds of people who seem completely unaware of how English has always been spoken and written, and continues to be spoken and written.



> my teacher was categorical in his advice.


And I shall be just as categorical in telling you that your teacher does not know what he is talking about.


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## natkretep

Matching Mole said:


> Having said that, I think English speakers quite often obey the rule about not using the inflected genitive for inanimates; I think you may only be able to learn the skill of when to, and when not to, by experience.



I agree that we are unlikely to talk about a _*table's* mats_ or a _*bathroom's *basin_. I would, however, happily talk about a _fan's blades_ or a _*car's *wheels_. I'm uncertain about a _*taxi's *passengers_. I definitely don't want to talk about _*French's* decline as an international language_, though I would feel less dubious about talking about _*civilisation's *end_.

Can anyone discern a pattern?


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## TommyGun

Hi all,


Thomas Tompion said:


> The carpet's colour has faded





natkretep said:


> I would, however, happily talk about a _fan's blades_



What's strange, the ngram doesn't confirm that these phrases are the case
carpet's colour vs. carpet colour
fan's blades vs. fan blades
Does it just kind of regional usage?


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## Thomas Tompion

TommyGun said:


> Hi all,
> 
> 
> 
> What's strange, the ngram doesn't confirm that these phrases are the case
> carpet's colour vs. carpet colour
> fan's blades vs. fan blades
> Does it just kind of regional usage?


No TG, not a regional usage.

We talk both of *a carpet colour*, and of *a carpet's colour*, but in different circumstances.

*What carpet colour do you like? *- of carpets in general.  I have a friend who will only buy red carpets.  Red is the only carpet colour he likes.

Talking of an individual carpet we can easily say things like* this carpet's colour has faded.*  That means that the colour of this carpet has faded.

It's not surprising that you can't find much on the ngrams about this, because not many Google books talk about carpets and their colours.


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## TommyGun

Thank you Thomas!

Some examples stump me:
Why we can say
_ the building's foundation_
but can't
_ the house's roof_

Does _the table's leg_ sound naturally to you?


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## Forero

TommyGun said:


> Thank you Thomas!
> 
> Some examples stump me:
> Why we can say
> _ the building's foundation_
> but can't
> _ the house's roof_
> 
> Does _the table's leg_ sound naturally to you?


We can and do say all of these.

About a century ago, the word _legs_ itself was avoided in polite society, women wore really long skirts, and even tables' legs were normally covered. If "the table's leg" is still unusual, this peculiarity of history may have something to do with it.

Yes, "the table's leg" does sound natural (not "naturally") to me, but unusual. It works better in the plural since a normal table has more than one leg: "the table's legs".

The word _of_ and the suffix _-'s_ share many meanings, but there are some meanings of each not shared by the other. I don't know a simple rule, but I believe the key to knowing which fits a given context is in knowing which meanings do and do not fit.


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## Loob

In case it's helpful, here's a copy of something I wrote in an earlier thread summarising advice from the _Longman Student Grammar of Spoken and Written English_:





Loob said:


> Hi Vanest
> 
> Funnily enough, I came across a fairly long discussion of this issue today (in the corpus-based _Longman Student Grammar of Spoken and Written English)_. I'll try to summarise.
> 
> (1) Genitives can indicate (A) possession (_John's book_) and (B) classification - answering the question "what kind of X?" (_a bird's nest, children's literature_). They are also used in (C) phrases of duration, distance, and monetary value: _a minute's hesitation, at arm's length, fifty pounds' worth_;
> 
> (2) Classifying genitives {(1)(B) above} are often equivalent to an adjective or a noun modifier: _a summer's day = a summer day;_
> 
> (3) The genitive tends to be used with (i) nouns referring to human  beings (ii) collective nouns (usually referring to human organisations)  (iii) place nouns, especially those referring to centres of population.  This doesn't exclude other uses, but "a genitive noun is very likely to have a human connection, even if it is not a personal noun";
> 
> (4) Inanimate and abstract nouns are much more likely to be used with the 'of' construction (_the future of socialism_);
> 
> (5) If you can translate the construction into a sentence with a verb, then
> 5(a) "X's" is more likely if X would be the subject: _John accepted_  _John's acceptance_
> 5(b) "of X" is more likely if X would be the object: _someone murdered a child  the murder of a child._
> 
> [...]


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## TommyGun

Forero said:


> sound natural (not "naturally") to me


Thanks, a good point! 


TommyGun said:


> Why we can say
> the building's foundation
> but can't
> the house's roof





Forero said:


> We can and do say all of these.


Actually, the latter example is from Swan "Practical English Usage", the esteemed grammar book.
Other examples from the book:
_   the name of the street_ (NOT the street's name)
_   the back of the room_ (NOT the room's back)
_   the top of the page_ (NOT the page's top)

Do you agree that possessive is not acceptable in these phrases?



Forero said:


> I don't know a simple rule, but I believe the key to knowing which fits a given context is in knowing which meanings do and do not fit.


Grammar books say the same, that there aren't general rules, but I don't quite believe that because natives from different counties (GB, US, AU) usually agree with one another on acceptance of a concrete usage.
I'm interested what people think of when they use such possessives and what goes in their mind that prompts them to reject some cases.



Thomas Tompion said:


> The steak's juices ran onto the plate
> The car's brakes aren't working
> The carpet's colour has faded
> 
> I wonder what is the guiding principle.



I guess the following:
When we say _the sun's rays_, we think of _rays_, and _the sun_ is considered just as descriptive definition for that rays. We can omit the possessive part without much distorting the meaning.
The same is for _the car's brakes_, _the carpet's colour_.

In the case of _the steak's juices_ it is important that these juices are of the steak. If we just say _The juices ran onto the plate._, it would take additional mental effort for the listener to determine what kind of juices in question. So, _the steak _here is a determiner for _juices_, and it would be unnatural to use it as a descriptive word.

Does the above make any sense?


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## Thomas Tompion

For what it's worth, I've changed my view on *the steak's juices*, though I think I'd be more likely to say *the steak juices*.

Don't forget, TG, that these are matters of nuance rather than of hard and fast rules.  I wouldn't under all circumstances outlaw *the street's name*, *the room's back*, or *the page's top*.  If the page were a small boy, *the page's hat* would be quite normal, of course.

I feel that you need to take Loob's very excellent and helpful summary to heart.


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## Forero

TommyGun said:


> Actually, the latter example is from Swan "Practical English Usage", the esteemed grammar book.
> Other examples from the book:
> _   the name of the street_ (NOT the street's name)
> _   the back of the room_ (NOT the room's back)
> _   the top of the page_ (NOT the page's top)
> 
> Do you agree that possessive is not acceptable in these phrases?
> 
> Grammar books say the same, that there aren't general rules, but I don't quite believe that because natives from different counties (GB, US, AU) usually agree with one another on acceptance of a concrete usage.
> I'm interested what people think of when they use such possessives and what goes in their mind that prompts them to reject some cases.


I have no problem with "the street's name".

"The room's back" and "the page's top" are not good substitutes for "the back of the room" and "the top of the page", but the issue is not the fact that pages and rooms are inanimate but the special meaning of "back of" and "top of".

"My back" and "the back of me" are both valid phrases, but they generally don't mean the same thing. Ditto for "my top" and "the top of me". There is a meaning of _top_ and _back_ that can be used without an article: e.g in _on top of_, _in back of_. I take _the top of_ and _the back of_ to refer to that same, more abstract, meaning of _top_ and _back_, but the _of_ seems to be necessary to this interpretation. _My top_ and _my back_ almost have to refer to something different.





> I guess the following:
> When we say _the sun's rays_, we think of _rays_, and _the sun_ is considered just as descriptive definition for that rays. We can omit the possessive part without much distorting the meaning.


I think distortions of meaning are precisely what we are dealing with, but common and uncommon collocations are a part of what allows us to assign meanings to words.

I am not sure what you mean by omitting the possessive part. "The sun's rays" and "the rays of the sun" seem to be the same thing, or nearly the same thing, but "the sun rays" seems to be something different, some fish maybe.





> The same is for _the car's brakes_, _the carpet's colour_.


The brakes of the car, the brakes in the car, the brakes from the car, the car's brakes: these may all refer to the same brakes, but they don't have to really mean the same thing.





> In the case of _the steak's juices_ it is important that these juices are of the steak. If we just say _The juices ran onto the plate._, it would take additional mental effort for the listener to determine what kind of juices in question. So, _the steak _here is a determiner for _juices_, and it would be unnatural to use it as a descriptive word.


I don't see a big difference between "the steak's juices" and "the juices of the steak", except that "the steak's juices" are more likely to have already left the steak.





> Does the above make any sense?


"The juices are of the steak" sounds funny to me. Do you mean the juices are/come from the steak?


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## AWordLover

I love this topic. Since I last posted in this thread I acquired a degree in linguistics and came to possess a fairly imposing tome on Grammar, "A Comprehensive Grammar of the English Language", by Randolf Quirk, Sidney Greenbaum, Geoffrey Leech, and Jan Svartvik. Published by Longman in 1985. On page 1277, in section 17.39 they state "With inanimate, in particular concrete, nouns, the of-construction is normally required." But, they go on to say there is a group of inanimate nouns: geographical nouns, nouns telling location, and time that permit the use of the genitive.

My real point is that the focus has shifted from references like this that are informed almost solely by expert opinion to references that are informed by using computers to analyze large amounts of actual text. The new references use the tools of corpus linguistics. The Longman reference given by Loob above is an example of a corpus driven text. And you can see that real usage does allow the use of the genitive for inanimate objects, but it is rare in real writing.

As always, style guides are not constrained solely by what educated people actually say and write.


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## Fern_

The 'rule' of "genitive for animate/'of' for inanimate" seems to be softened as you get into a topic or a text.  I've come across numerous examples of 's for inanimate things in academic texts (a source signal's statistics, the law's access control requirements, a molecule's fate), but this is not done at the beginning of a text.  However, after you've been discussing the signal/law/molecule etc for a while it becomes a) repetitive to have to spell out the whole '... of the ...' structure every time and b) the signal/law/molecule etc has become your friend.


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## TommyGun

Forero said:


> The brakes of the car, the brakes in the car, the brakes from the car, the car's brakes:  but they don't have to really mean the same thing.


Really? Could you please give an example when their meanings are different?


Forero said:


> "The juices are of the steak" sounds funny to me. Do you mean the juices are/come from the steak?


Yes, it was that I meant.


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## TommyGun

AWordLover said:


> "A Comprehensive Grammar of the English Language", by Randolf Quirk, Sidney Greenbaum, Geoffrey Leech, and Jan Svartvik. Published by Longman in 1985. On page 1277, in section 17.39


Great book.  Contains the most thorough analysis on genitive I've ever seen.


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## fdb

NancyDunn said:


> Hi ed800uk,
> 
> Could this "rule" so forcefully stated in the university's online style guide but so little known by the anglophones in the forum be one of those those English-language rigidities that derive from the centuries when Latin was the language of the educated elite? When anything one could not do in Latin was self-evidently too vulgar for any English emitted by an educated person?



This so-called rule is one thing you cannot blame on Latin. Latin can form the genitive case both from animate and inanimate nouns. It is the only way that Latin can express the possessive relationnship.


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## TommyGun

Loob said:


> (4) Inanimate and abstract nouns are much more likely to be used with the 'of' construction (_the future of socialism_);



Concerning _the future of socialism._ Quirk in his grammar relates such phrases as "television's future", "the game's history", "the mind's development", etc to nouns 'of special relevance to human activity' and says that the use of the genitive in these cases is frequent.


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## PaulQ

The first rule is that the advice on the formation of the genitive with inanimate objects is always prefaced by "usually/ often/ commonly/ rarely / however / and such words of uncertainty.

The second rule is firm and simple - learn them all and if one gains popularity, adopt it.

I will add a third form as I noted the discussions on "the leg of the table" and "the table's leg" - personally I say, _the table leg - fork prong, knife blade, light switch, cooker knob, car brakes, etc._ - all good Germanic compound noun phrases.


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## naplb

It's worth noting that the possessive-s is often just viewed as a clitic, a particle that can attach to the end of virtually anything.
(Again, as pointed out earlier, phrases like _the back of the room,_ _the top of the page _and _in front of the house _cannot be inverted or use the possessive, simply because these are in fact functioning as prepositions).

Back to the clitic thing, I can only speak for Australian English, but its nature as a clitic is obvious in (at least Australian) speech:
The man I saw yesterday's car was red.
The woman sitting next to me's purse was stolen.
Me and Tom's friendship dates back to primary school.


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## gabriel001234

naplb said:


> It's worth noting that the possessive-s is often just viewed as a clitic, a particle that can attach to the end of virtually anything.
> (Again, as pointed out earlier, phrases like _the back of the room,_ _the top of the page _and _in front of the house _cannot be inverted or use the possessive, simply because these are in fact functioning as prepositions).
> 
> Back to the clitic thing, I can only speak for Australian English, but its nature as a clitic is obvious in (at least Australian) speech:
> The man I saw yesterday's car was red.
> The woman sitting next to me's purse was stolen.
> Me and Tom's friendship dates back to primary school.


Can I say the door's handle or the song's lyrics?


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## Florentia52

gabriel001234 said:


> Can I say the door's handle or the song's lyrics?


Please give us the complete sentence in which you would say this, with some context for it.


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## se16teddy

gabriel001234 said:


> Can I say the door's handle or the song's lyrics?


Yes.


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## GreenWhiteBlue

gabriel001234 said:


> Can I say the door's handle or the song's lyrics?



Certainly.  You can speak of the_ door's handle_, or the _handle's color_, or the _color's popularity_, or_ popularity's importance_.  You would not speak of _importance's meaning_ (and would instead say _the meaning of importance_), but primarily because the sibilance of the repeated /s/ sounds makes "importance's" sound unattractive and wrong.


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## Englishmypassion

Though I also read that _rule_ in some grammar books, probably including one taught at school, that say we don't use 's with inanimate things and we cannot say "chair's leg", I have heard highly educated native speakers say "the book's cover/design", etc. 

The rule I studied listed the measurements' of time and distance as exceptions, for example "three days' leave", "ten kilometres' distance" and "arm's throw".


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## GreenWhiteBlue

Englishmypassion said:


> Though I also read that _rule_ in some grammar books, probably including one taught at school, that say we don't use 's with inanimate things and we cannot say "chair's leg", I have heard highly educated native speakers say "the book's cover/design", etc.


Of course you have heard highly educated native speakers violate this "rule", because there is no such "rule", and the claim that there is any such "rule" is baseless rubbish that is contradicted by the entire history of English literature.


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## Forero

GreenWhiteBlue said:


> Certainly.  You can speak of the_ door's handle_, or the _handle's color_, or the _color's popularity_, or_ popularity's importance_.  You would not speak of _importance's meaning_ (and would instead say _the meaning of importance_), but primarily because the sibilance of the repeated /s/ sounds makes "importance's" sound unattractive and wrong.


For me, there is nothing wrong with the sound of _importance's_ (one /s/ and one /z/), but it does not convey the right meaning. Sometimes -_'s_ and _of_ coincide in meaning, but not always.

_the meaning of Praise_ [the meaning that praise has]
_Praise's meaning_

_woman of merit_ [woman who has merit]
_merit's woman

meaning of importance_ [meaning that has importance = important meaning]
_importance's meaning_

_We came within a mile of the road.
We came within the road's mile._
_We came within one of the road's miles._

_book of flora
flora's book

dress of fine wool
fine wool's dress_

(The use of articles is another matter involved in what works with -'s and what doesn't.)


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## TRADUINT

I was puzzled by some of the answers to this thread. I've studied English for so long and I was also told about the inanimated things rule, with some exceptions (time, organisations, places). But lately I found many expressions like _the car's wheels_. Trustworthy grammars like Cambridge or Collins confirm the rule, although as PaulQ said, they use words like "generally, usually". I'm so confused!


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## tunaafi

There is no need to be confused. The 'rule' is a useful *guideline*. If you follow it, you will almost never be wrong or sound unnatural. Even in contexts in which native speakers do not always follow the guideline, using 'of' is OK.


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## GreenWhiteBlue

TRADUINT said:


> I was puzzled by some of the answers to this thread. I've studied English for so long and I was also told about the inanimated things rule, with some exceptions (time, organisations, places). But lately I found many expressions like _the car's wheels_. Trustworthy grammars like Cambridge or Collins confirm the rule, although as PaulQ said, they use words like "generally, usually". I'm so confused!



There is *no such rule*.  There *never* has been any such rule in English.  It has always been legitimate to use the "Saxon genitive" with inanimate objects in English, and you will find it used in English literature going all the way back to _Beowulf.  _The choice between whether to use a "Saxon genitive" or an "of" form when speaking of an inanimate object is entirely a choice dictated by style rather than by grammar: you use the one that _sounds _best in that place.  Anyone who claims that a phrase such as _the ship's bell _is "wrong", and ought to be changed to "the bell of the ship", is an ignoramus who doesn't know how English is spoken.


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## emmi55

The debate has become heated apparently.
The use of "of the" is most of the time technically correct, right? the problem with this form is that it often sounds innatural. For example "in today's lesson" is much more common and pleasant of "in the lesson of today", and I am not even sure if it's correct. 
But the real problem is with noun modifiers. I would like to understand what is the difference in the meaning between the use of the ossessive form and a noun-noun structure. If "table's leg" is correct, is "table leg" incorrect? and if not, what is the difference? can they be used interchangeably in any context? I think that the rule of specific and general thing is a little superficial, there are cases in which the possessive can be used for things in a general sense and the same for the noun modifier structure that can refer also to specific things. 
So how do we get out of this? sure, the best way to get out of this is just following the use, but there has to be a common pattern.
Is "a computer cordo" different from "a computer's cord"? can I say both in any case? if not, what are the different contexts in which each one are used? 
is it possible that in "a computer cord" you define directly the kind, the type of cord (since there are many), while in the possessive form you communicate the same thing but through the belonging (in a strict or broad sense) to something? in this way in the first case you focus on the cord and its type, so you consider mainly the cord, the cord is at the center of the attention, while in the second case you don't actually define it, but just specify to what it belongs to. They communicate the same thing but there is a subtle difference that even native speakers can find difficult to grasp on a theorical level. Sometimes meanings hide very well in grammatical structure, and we use them without even knowing that they are there.

Sorry for any problable grammatical errors, I am not that advanced...


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## emmi55

Also, isn't there a huge english grammar book that explains this stuff in detail? like, there has to be some crazy grammarian that did all these reasoning for us and can give a general rule that includes the common use of the possessive for inanimate nouns, in short words someone that considers "a table's leg(s)" correct since is common for english speakers to say it, and also for the reasons stated by GreenWhiteBlue.


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## GreenWhiteBlue

There is a difference between "table's leg" and "table legs."  Table legs are legs suitable for tables generally. A table's leg, on the other hand, is the leg of a particular table.  The choice between "the leg  of the table" and "the table's leg" is a matter of style and preference, largely based on what sounds best to the speaker or writer, or what the speaker or writer wants to emphasize.  It is not a matter of grammar.

Suppose you work for Ikea, and you make one of several components that will be used to assemble some of the millions of tables that Ikea sells.  Your particular job is to make the legs for the stylish new "Emmi" table that Ikea is producing this year.  Any of the legs that you make will fit on any "Emmi" table anywhere in the world.  If I ask you what you do for a living, you could say "I make _*table legs*_."

I buy an "Emmi" table, and I put it in my house.  My neighbor's cat climbs through my open window, and uses *the legs of the table *as scratching posts, leaving them badly scarred.  I come home and find the cat damaging my table.   I yell at the neighbor, saying "*My table's legs *are not scratching posts for your filthy cat!!!!"  I realize that two of the legs are so badly damaged that I need to replace them.  Since I know that you work for the company that makes the items, I say to you "Two of *my table's legs *were ruined by the neighbor's cat, and now I need two new* table legs. * Do you know where I can get them?"

Does that help?


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## emmi55

GreenWhiteBlue said:


> There is a difference between "table's leg" and "table legs."  Table legs are legs suitable for tables generally. A table's leg, on the other hand, is the leg of a particular table.  The choice between "the leg  of the table" and "the table's leg" is a matter of style and preference, largely based on what sounds best to the speaker or writer, or what the speaker or writer wants to emphasize.  It is not a matter of grammar.
> 
> Does that help?


Yes, thank you.
But, is this rule in which noun-noun constructions are used when we refer to things in general always true? and does the possessive form always refer to specific things? also, in my example I wrote " a table('s) leg", with an indefinite article, and since indefinite articles already indicate a non specific thing, does this mean that I cannot in any case say "a table's leg" and instead I must say "a table leg" to make sense?


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## Thomas Tompion

emmi55 said:


> Yes, thank you.
> But, is this rule in which noun-noun constructions are used when we refer to things in general always true? and does the possessive form always refer to specific things? also, in my example I wrote " a table('s) leg", with an indefinite article, and since indefinite articles already indicate a non specific thing, does this mean that I cannot in any case say "a table's leg" and instead I must say "a table leg" to make sense?


I think GWB has just told you that you can, in some circumstances, say 'a table's leg'.

To answer your first question.  What you call the *noun-noun* construction is actually very often a *noun (as adjective)-nou*n construction.

So your question becomes 'Can all nouns be used as adjectives?'.  I hate to use absolutes here, so I don't often use them, but many nouns can be so used.

Thus the clock at the station is not often called 'the clock of the station', but rather 'the station clock'.  I shall strangle any member who goes on to say that I stated that we never say 'the clock of the station'.


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## GreenWhiteBlue

emmi55 said:


> does this mean that I cannot in any case say "a table's leg" and instead I must say "a table leg" to make sense?



No, it absolutely does not mean that.  As I said above, whether you use "a table's leg" or "a leg of a table" mean the same thing, and can be used fairly interchangeably as a matter of preference, style, or emphasis rather than as a matter of grammar.  To assume that you "cannot in any case say a table's leg" would also mean that you cannot in any case say "a leg of a table", and neither statement would be true.  

For example, you are touring Versailles, and are very interested in the particular details of pieces of furniture.  In the Hall of Mirrors you notice a table whose legs end in feet with claws.  You take a close-up photograph of that detail.  Later, a friend is looking at your photos and says "what is this carved foot?"  You might respond "that is _a leg of a table _I saw in the Hall of Mirrors at Versailles", or you might say "That is _a table's leg_ I saw in Versailles." The difference is one of emphasis, with the first sentence stressing the existence of the table of which the leg was a part, and the second focusing particularly on the leg.


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## emmi55

Thomas Tompion said:


> I think GWB has just told you that you can, in some circumstances, say 'a table's leg'.
> To answer your first question.  What you call the *noun-noun* construction is actually very often a *noun (as adjective)-nou*n construction.
> So your question becomes 'Can all nouns be used as adjectives?'.  I hate to use absolutes here, so I don't often use them, but many nouns can be so used.
> 
> Thus the clock at the station is not often called 'the clock of the station', but rather 'the station clock'.  I shall strangle any member who goes on to say that I stated that we never say 'the clock of the station'.


See that's the thing. I am sorry to insist on this, I just want to understand in detail the question of "general" things and specific things. I just found on a site, regarding "kitchen('s) window", an answer of a user stating this:

_As with most things English, the rules are mushy, but the non-possessive use of "kitchen" to modify "window" implies a window of the* type* used in a kitchen, while the possessive implies a window which is *"owned"* by the kitchen.
There is plenty of room for both forms to be used, depending on context._

Speaking of "type" or "kind" makes more sense to me than speaking of "a thing in general", since, in your example, I feel that "the clock of the station" doesn't necessarily indicate a clock of a specific station, does it? with this expression, in a certain context, you can also mean a clock in a station in general. I feel like the *noun (as adjective)-nou*n construction gives kind of a "name" to something, a sort of "title", a tag, a denominatio. It's like in the possessive form you give the added information through an esplicit possession/ownership, while in the noun(adjective)-noun the added information describes the type of the object by giving sort of a name to the object, thus the possession is given this way this way and not directly. The information added is the same and describes the same object but through different expressions, in one the possession is directly expressed, meaning explicit, in the other is just implied by stating the type and sort of naming the object.
So, to end it, both constructions indicate the same thing, they are just different ways of indicate it.

Is this a good interpretation?  I feel like understanding it more this way. Consider that I'm not native, so this reasoning can seem...strange? or forced? I don't know, either way I agree with the user that I quoted above who said the same thing.




GreenWhiteBlue said:


> No, it absolutely does not mean that.  As I said above, whether you use "a table's leg" or "a leg of a table" mean the same thing, and can be used fairly interchangeably as a matter of preference, style, or emphasis rather than as a matter of grammar.  To assume that you "cannot in any case say a table's leg" would also mean that you cannot in any case say "a leg of a table", and neither statement would be true.




Ok, got it, as long as I can say "of the" I can also use " 's", even if sometimes one form can be preferable to the other.


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## bennymix

GreenWB:   I yell at the neighbor, saying "*My table's legs *are not scratching posts for your filthy cat!!!!

I certainly would not yell that.


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## emmi55

bennymix said:


> GreenWB:   I yell at the neighbor, saying "*My table's legs *are not scratching posts for your filthy cat!!!!
> 
> I certainly would not yell that.


I think he wrote it for the sake of the example. Maybe "the legs of my table" is better?


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## bennymix

emmi55 said:


> I think he wrote it for the sake of the example. Maybe "the legs of my table" is better?



I think Green was reporting his usage, but I'll let him clarify.    Usages vary.   I grew up in S.California.


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## Thomas Tompion

emmi55 said:


> [...]
> Speaking of "type" or "kind" makes more sense to me than speaking of "a thing in general", since, in your example, I feel that "the clock of the station" doesn't necessarily indicate a clock of a specific station, does it? I feel like the *noun (as adjective)-nou*n construction gives kind of a "name" to something, a sort of "title", a tag, a denominatio. It's like in the possessive form you give the added information through an esplicit possession/ownership, while in the noun(adjective)-noun the added information describes the type of the object by giving sort of a name to the object, thus the possession is given this way this way and not directly. The information added is the same and describes the same object but through different expressions, in one the possession is directly expressed, meaning explicit, in the other is just implied by stating the type and sort of naming the object.
> So, to end it, both constructions indicate the same thing, they are just different ways of indicate it.


A station clock is certainly the sort of clock one would find at a station, but when we say 'the station clock' we usually are talking of 'the clock at the station', and would say that more often than 'the clock of the station', unless the circumstances were particular.  In the second case (the clock of the station) we are not so much indicating possession as association - I'd prefer the *noun (as adjective)-noun* form here because the genitive isn't really classifying.

This might help, mentioned earlier in the thread - elimination of subsidies / subsidies' elimination


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## GreenWhiteBlue

bennymix said:


> I think Green was reporting his usage, but I'll let him clarify.    Usages vary.   I grew up in S.California.


As emmi noted, it was all a hypothetical example for the sake of putting "table's legs", "legs of a table", and "table legs" in one paragraph.  However, I see no problem with it grammatically.  Do you?


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## bennymix

No.  It's not a grammar issue, in my opinion.


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## se16teddy

I suspect that the core issue is that we use the “apostrophe s” form to indicate a relationship of possession, ownership and similar, and we are more likely to see a relationship as “similar” if the owner is animate. So a “table-leg” sounds OK because many people prefer to avoid “a table’s leg”; but a “friend-leg” sounds odd and possibly ungrammatical, compared to “a friend’s leg”.


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## Forero

I don't think "a friend leg" is ungrammatical, but it is a strange idea. If God or someone made legs to go on friends as opposed to people in general, they would be "friend legs".

I have always been more impressed by girl legs than by boy legs, however, especially friendly ones.


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## Vsevolod

And how about these?

The car's speed
The bed’s size
The house's roof
The carpet's colour
The room's atmosphere
The civilization's end
The T-shirt's fabric
The street's name
The pen's ink
The game's rules
The letter’s text
The saxophone's curve
The picture's contrast
_ <——-List shortened by moderator (Florentia52)——->_

I can think of three conditions allowing for the use of the "A's B" construction with inanimate nouns:
1) B must be an integral part of A;
2) A is required to be in a prominent topical position (i.e. the main focus of the sentence should be on A).
3) If there are more than one integral part to the A, B should be plural and carry no focus ("the table's leg" sounds not as elegant as "the table's legs" to me, probably because some portion of the table's focus goes to the leg that we - for some reason - are singling out).


What do you think of this?


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## GreenWhiteBlue

Vsevolod said:


> What do you think of this?



I think you are wrong.

As I have said many, many times before, it is not a question of "allowing" anything, because there is nothing that would hinder or prevent the grammatical use of the possessive form with any inanimate object.  The choice does not depend on whether the use is "allowed" because of your three conditions; instead, the choice is based on style, sound, and emphasis.  I have no objection at all to "the car's speed" or "the carpet's color".  I probably would not say "the house's roof, but that is simply because the sibilance of "house's" strikes me as unpleasant, and I would have no problem with "the building's roof" (as in "the building's roof was made of slate rather than wooden shingles, and that helped it escape the fire that destroyed the rest of the village.")  One also does not have to think twice about whether (for example) "a day's pay" meets the conditions of your rules, because every native speaker knows that "a day's pay" is standard, normal, grammatical English, while "the pay of a day" is odd.


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## Cagey

This thread is closed. It has become too general for our forum, which focuses on individual examples in a specific context.

When this thread was started, rules were enforced less strictly than they are now. 

It contains discussion that will interest some people. Thank you to everyone who participated. 
You can find other threads by searching for possessive inanimate.

Cagey, 
moderator


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