Grammar ?

No, there shouldn't. Months isn't possessive, nor is there a missing word, or any other reason for one. You wouldn't write 'It'll take two month's before the parcel will arrive'.

But you'd write "there is a two months' gap between his death and his burial."

No?

Time is possessive, so she would be two months' pregnant, but I think it is evolving to the point where either has become acceptable. Or if you are that uncomfortable, reword it. She is in the second month of her pregnancy.

A good book for this stuff is "Woe is I", by Patricia T. O'Conner.

Months

maestrowork said:

But you'd write "there is a two months' gap between his death and his burial."

No?

Click to expand...

I'd write, "There was a two month gap between his death and burial."

Or, "There is a two month gap between his death and burial."

No need for a plural or a possessive.

Yes, maestro, you would.

In no case should it be "two month's."

Examples of correct use:

There is a two months' gap.

There is a two-month gap. (This version reads better, though)

There was a three-week delay.

The package was three weeks late. (Adverbial use of number + plural noun)

You're already two months pregnant. (Same here: adverbial use of number + plural noun)

The company owes her two months' back pay. (A true possessive here)

Tell your editor I have 30 years' experience at copy editing. (That could be an example, but that's not the reason to tell her.) "Pregnant" is an adjective. She shouldn't be trying to make a possessive in front of an adjective.

reph said:

In no case should it be "two month's."Tell your editor I have 30 years' experience at copy editing. (That could be an example, but that's not the reason to tell her.) "Pregnant" is an adjective. She shouldn't be trying to make a possessive in front of an adjective.

Click to expand...

Tell your editor that a Ph.D. candidate in English agrees, and is perfectly willing to provide supporting citations.

Trust Reph. She knows her stuff.

You'd say "two months pregant" but "two months' pregnancy" or "two-month pregnancy."

Isn't English fun?

Always go to reph for grammar.

And Medievalist, it seems, knows the right stuff as well.

reph said:

Yes, maestro, you would.

In no case should it be "two month's."

Examples of correct use:

There is a two months' gap.

There is a two-month gap. (This version reads better, though)

There was a three-week delay.

The package was three weeks late. (Adverbial use of number + plural noun)

You're already two months pregnant. (Same here: adverbial use of number + plural noun)

The company owes her two months' back pay. (A true possessive here)

Tell your editor I have 30 years' experience at copy editing. (That could be an example, but that's not the reason to tell her.) "Pregnant" is an adjective. She shouldn't be trying to make a possessive in front of an adjective.

Click to expand...

Why would you ever writer a "two months' gap?" I don't see any basis for this in grammar. "Two-month" gap, yes, with or without the hyphen, but what's that rationalization for sticking the apostrophe on there? This would have drawn a quick lecture from my college professor. At best, it isn't needed, and at worst, it's going to be misunderstood. I don't even see a basis for using the "s" on month, let alone an apostrophe after it.

As for "month's," the only time such usage was allowed, or demanded, was in somethng like "A month's pay," or "This month's business."

Jamesaritchie said:

Why would you ever writer a "two months' gap?" I don't see any basis for this in grammar. "Two-month" gap, yes, with or without the hyphen, but what's that rationalization for sticking the apostrophe on there?

Click to expand...

It is needed; it is standard, and it is correct. I'll provide citations if you'd like. I know this is covered in the Chicago Manual of Style section on apostrophes; 6.something. I can check later.

The reason you need the apostrophe is not because it's a possessive; it isn't, really, though you need an apostrophe for a similar reason, to indicate ommitted letters.

Possesive nouns and pronouns, properly speaking, are instances of the genitive case, which we mostly forget about in modern English.

"Two months gap" is an example of the genitive of time. It's really saying "a gap of two months." The "of" used to be indicated, until about 1480 or so, usually with an -es suffix, that is, the suffix used for the genitive case. The apostrophe was introduced in the genitive by printers to save letters (they adoped a ms. abbreviation).

Jamesaritchie, I wouldn't write "a two months' gap." I was only confirming that if someone wrote "a two months gap," which was a sequence of words in maestro's example,

But you'd write "there is a two months' gap between his death and his burial."

No?

it would need an apostrophe.

"A two-month gap," which I prefer, needs a hyphen.

I like the hyphen better as well. But strictly speaking, "a two months gap between his death and his burial" is grammatically correct.

Just socially awkward <g>

And I've checked; see Chicago Manual of Style section 6.14.

I have the 12th edition of Chicago, and my Sec. 6.14 is about something else. My Table 6.1, "A Spelling Guide for Compound Words," has this entry:

TYPE COMPOUND
ten-foot pole

SIMILAR COMPOUNDS
three-mile limit, 100-yard dash, one-inch margin, 10-meter band, four-year-old boy but: 10 percent increase

REMARKS
Type: cardinal number + unit of measurement. Hyphenate compound if it precedes noun.


Have they changed the rule already?

I'm looking at the 13th ed. 1982 of the Chicago Manual of Style, section 6.14 p. 161. It's the Spellingossesssives:Apostrophes section. It reads as follows:

Analogous to possessives, and formed like them, are expressions of duration based on the old genitive case:

an hour's delay in three days' time

Click to expand...

I learned something like "two months' gap" and "one-year-old baby" when I was a young boy, and that stuck with exactly because it was "odd" to me. But I learned and I remember.

maestrowork said:

I learned something like "two months' gap" and "one-year-old baby" when I was a young boy, and that stuck with exactly because it was "odd" to me. But I learned and I remember.

Click to expand...

Everything I know about English grammar I learned from Middle English .

'the flat tire's thumping was driving me crazy.'

that's how i would have written it just a few years ago. now, without the apostrophe as i've noticed the possessive of objects tend to leave out the apostrophe, i reckon for style's sake. be it known i don't know what 'genitive' means, though, lol. as it seems to be now, i can pick up ten random books off the shelves and can find three or four different 'methods' of 'grammar' (i.e. three or four different levels of ignorance and/or giving a damn).

but, i'd write:

'a chrysler's junkitude never failed to impress,' because 'chrysler' is almost a proper name.

'the windows dirty panes precluded spying in on britney while she was bathing,' is just how i'd write that. now that i'm used to it, i have to admit that, while grammatically wrong, it does appear more pleasing on paper. sure, i write around that anyway, i'm just saying for purposes of examples....

there don't seem to be many bastions of grammar left. certainly, i'm not one. but what does irk me is a book full of half-quotes. that's just irritating. this from a guy whose mind is boggled over 'lay' and 'lie,' which is never as easy as it sounds. i swear they've added some more rules to this since last i looked up the proper usage (this is also why i hardly ever use the word).

anyway, i'd change my use of apostrophes and even hyphens (though i think i do a decent job of that) to suit an editor's comfort level. since most americans are pretty lax towards advanced grammar, i wonder if it would be much of a problem. if it is, that's why people like reph have jobs, eh?

Just write "the windows dirty panes" -- your editor will sooner or later come back to you and demand that apostrophe (or change it to "the dirty window panes") ... if you ever get that far.

Genitive is an old school grammatical/linguistic term. Earlier grammatical terms for describing English were based on those used in Latin. Genitive is a case. Modern English nouns don't usually have case, except for pronouns. In modern English we tend to use prepositions instead of changing the noun.
.
I is the Nominative or Subject case
Me is the object case
Mine is the genitive

There are different kinds of genitives. Modern English still has the possessive, the genitive of time, and the genitive of measurement. You could say that a genitive is also used to indicate source, when something is part of something (trees of France). Another way of thinking about the genitive is that it refers to expressions using "of."

If you quote me to a linguist, he'll die of laughter and I'll deny I said that But it mostly works.

The word genitive is derived from the same Latin verb that gave us "beget." That kind of makes sense too.

thanks for that, med.

maes, i don't know-- i've seen plenty of examples where the way i wrote it would definitely fly, so who knows? something else i've always been taught was to put a comma after 'but' when it begins a sentence, something i still do. but, most writers now, it seems, don't do that. and how many sentences do we see that begins with a prepositional phrase? it would be my dumb luck to find the one editor who had qualms with a sentence starting, 'under the windows panes...' and harping on the lack of an apostrophe.

Medievalist said:

I'm looking at the 13th ed. 1982 of the Chicago Manual of Style, section 6.14 p. 161. It's the Spellingossesssives:Apostrophes section.

Click to expand...

The 12th edition doesn't have that section. The only subsection under Spelling: Possessives is Proper Nouns.

I think the purpose of the passage you quoted is to give permission to form the possessive of a "time" word, such as "hour." A few posts back, I was talking about hyphenation, saying Chicago supported the requirement of a hyphen in "a two[-]month gap." I believe an apostrophe is required in "a two months['] gap," too, although I haven't found Chicago saying so.

"A two months' gap" means a gap of two months, as you know – hence the genitive.

preyer: 'the flat tire's thumping was driving me crazy.'

that's how i would have written it just a few years ago. now, without the apostrophe as i've noticed the possessive of objects tend to leave out the apostrophe, i reckon for style's sake.

Objects aren't supposed to have a possessive, except for those time words ("hour," etc.) and a few exceptions like "world" or in poetic use. When you see "the flat tire thumping," that isn't a possessive with the apostrophe + S left out. It has the same structure as "The girl wearing a yellow T shirt said she'd lost her keys."

that's why people like reph have jobs, eh?

Actually, I don't have a job. People like me might have jobs, though.

preyer said:

something else i've always been taught was to put a comma after 'but' when it begins a sentence, something i still do.

Click to expand...

No, no! Don't do that!

There's so much bad advice around. I'd like to find out where it comes from and stop it at the source.