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Tag Archive - Nouns

To Apostrophe or Not—That Is the Question

April 10, 2015 in Say What? with 4 Comments

Sometimes punctuation is a matter of context. Attributive vs. possessive nouns are a case in point. Is the second Sunday in May Mother’s Day, Mothers’ Day, or Mothers Day?

First, a quick review of the distinction in each of those examples:

Mother’s Day – singular possessive
Mothers’ Day – plural possessive
Mothers Day – plural noun, attributive

Attributive nouns are nouns that are used as adjectives. In the third example, Mother, normally a noun, is used as an adjective. That makes it an attributive noun, which does not take an apostrophe. Continue Reading…

Joint Ownership

April 3, 2015 in Say What? with 4 Comments

Let’s talk a bit about joint possession and the proper way to express this. Possession can get a bit tricky, and writers often don’t stop to think about the nuances. Take a look at this sentence:

We always go to my uncle and aunt’s house for the holidays.

Unless your uncle and aunt have separate homes, the sign of possession—the apostrophe—is placed with the second noun. The pair is treated as a unit; that’s what joint ownership is, after all.

Things get a little trickier when you replace one of the nouns with a pronoun. Which is correct?

We’re going to him (referring to your uncle) and my aunt’s house
We’re going to his and my aunt’s house

Turning Verbs into Nouns May Be Bad for Your Writing

October 24, 2014 in Say What? with 2 Comments

In the previous post on nominalizations, I talked about how nominalizations are formed and briefly touched on a general approach to remedying them. In this post, I’ll explain ways to identify and correct specific nominalizations, as well as point out some legitimate uses of nominalization.

Nominalization is a fancy word that means taking a part of speech such as a verb, adjective, or adverb and turning it into a noun—primarily at the head of a sentence. Doing this can lead to some weak sentence structure.

Watch out for nominalizations that follow a verb: