Wordcraft Home Page    Wordcraft Community Home Page    Forums  Hop To Forum Categories  Potpourri    apostrophic hijnks in the US Supreme Court
Go
New
Find
Notify
Tools
Reply
  
apostrophic hijnks in the US Supreme Court Login/Join
 
Member
Picture of zmježd
posted
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.


Ceci n'est pas un seing.
 
Posts: 5148 | Location: R'lyehReply With QuoteReport This Post
Member
Picture of Richard English
posted Hide Post
quote:
It is the first time I've found myself agreeing with Justice Thomas.

I don't know the honourable gentleman but I agree with him as well. (And shame on the "Legal Times")


Richard English
 
Posts: 8038 | Location: Partridge Green, West Sussex, UKReply With QuoteReport This Post
Member
posted Hide Post
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".
 
Posts: 2428Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Member
posted Hide Post
quote:
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.
 
Posts: 886 | Location: IllinoisReply With QuoteReport This Post
Member
Picture of zmježd
posted Hide Post
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.


Ceci n'est pas un seing.
 
Posts: 5148 | Location: R'lyehReply With QuoteReport This Post
  Powered by Social Strata  
 

Wordcraft Home Page    Wordcraft Community Home Page    Forums  Hop To Forum Categories  Potpourri    apostrophic hijnks in the US Supreme Court

Copyright © 2002-12