Re: prescriptive possessives, was: Number of writing systems

Andrew Dunbar wrote:

> While I am a big fan of the OED, I don't believe it
> has no prescriptive content at all. For instance look
> at its entry for "philosophers' stone". All
> quotations
> which have an apostrophe put it before the 's'.
> Other
> Oxford dictionaries also put it before the 's'.
> The
> full OED makes an analysis, a judgement, and then
> prescribes only the apostrophe-after-s spelling,
> omitting the other. [...]

Does it simply make an editorial choice? After all the OED uses -ize endings
rather than -ise, but that hasn't stopped the British public using -ise.
The OUP also did Hart's rules which were a style guide for editors and
printers. (Since replaced with the Oxford Guide to Style.)

Tim

--
Tim Partridge. Any opinions expressed are mine only and not those of my employer