Peter T. Daniels wrote:

> grendl löfkvist wrote:
> >
> > Hello Qalamites:
> >
> > I'm hoping this isn't horribly off-topic, but I've
> > been having some grammatical confusion with my
> > co-workers about the use of the apostrophe (I was
> > reminded by Peter Daniels complaint about the random
> > insertion of one into his last name).
>
> This should be "Daniels's" (or, old-fashionedly, "Daniels'").

Not picking on Peter personally here, but since his name is the example....

Is there a reference for the "newfangled" usage? I rarely see it and
always consider it incorrect, but I am willing to stand corrected....

>
> But I don't see how it can be other than kids' activities.

I think "kids activities" is kind of colloquial to begin with... stuff
that lids do on a playground could be "kids activities" or "kid
activities" without loss of meaning or nuance I think. The latter would
be the plural of the noun phrase "kid activity" I think.

"kids' activities" to me means the activities a specific group of kids
did. IOW, it was their activities (in the possessive sense). But the
previous paragraph's phrases has less relatively emphasis on specific
kids and more on the activities themselves.

Others may differ on this one because it seems so colloquial though...

Best,

Barry