Via Language Log: An article about the proper form of possessives for words which end in -s. It is the first time I've found myself agreeing with Justice Thomas.
quote:
As one of its final acts last term, the U.S. Supreme Court issued Kansas v. Marsh, a case involving the constitutionality of a state death-penalty statute. The 5-4 decision exposed the deep divide that exists among the nation’s intellectual elite regarding one of society’s most troubling issues—namely, whether the possessive form of a singular noun ending with the letter s requires an additional s after the apostrophe.
I guess I'm thick... it took me a few readings, but I guess they're not serious about "one of society’s most troubling issues." Or indeed about "the epidemic currently gripping the nation—that is, the widespread misunderstanding of the objective case for pronouns".
Justice Clarence Thomas, writing for the Court (and joined by Chief Justice John Roberts Jr. and Justices Samuel Alito Jr., Anthony Kennedy, and Antonin Scalia), concluded that the Kansas statute was not unconstitutional. In reaching this conclusion, Thomas repeatedly referred to the relevant law as Kansas’ statute.
zmjezhd, this also probably marks the first time you've agreed with any of those other 4.
this also probably marks the first time you've agreed with any of those other 4.
Yes, I just gave Justice Thomas the credit because he wrote the decision. Though, to be honest, I've used the same hand gesture that Justice Scalia once had used on a reporter.
