i18n@... wrote:

>
> 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....

Chicago Manual of Style, at least since the 13th ed. Always use 's
except on names that end with the "eez" sound (Aristophanes') and a few
stereotyped cases -- in Jesus' name, for conscience' sake (I think there
are half a dozen exceptions).

> > 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.

Sounds Brit.

> "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...

--
Peter T. Daniels grammatim@...