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Subject:Re: I flunked grammar, so ... From:"Deborah L. Crossman" <DLCrossman -at- AOL -dot- COM> Date:Tue, 26 Jan 1999 05:42:57 EST
In a message dated 1/26/99 4:14:49 AM Eastern Standard Time, dfeather -at- BAAN -dot- COM
writes:
> ... I need a bit of clarification from you all. How does one indicate the
> possessive form of a noun? I know that for a pronoun, we're meant to use
"my
> your his hers its ours theirs", without apostrophes if the pronoun ends in
> an "s". And if the noun is proper, we are meant to use the apostrophe -
> "David's problem", for example. But what about 'ordinary' nouns, like car,
> house, tree?
> Should I write "The cars wheel" or "The car's wheel"? And Please, "The
wheel
> of the car" is too tiresome to bear repeating.
David,
It would be the car's wheel, the house's door, and the tree's leaf. However,
sometimes you might want to restructure the sentence to avoid using an awkward
phrase such as the house's door (e.g., the door at the front of the house).
