site design / logo © 2021 Stack Exchange Inc; user contributions licensed under cc by-sa. For example, one hour's respite means a respite of one hour (exactly as the cat's whiskers means the whiskers of the cat). Sign up to my newsletter and receive 10 Super Simple Tips for Better Business Writing FREE. Rather, it is measured by two weeks. For more language love, join my Clever Copy Club and get monthly updates direct to your inbox. For some examples, see Do you know where Mike’s car keys are? The vacation doesn't belong to the weeks, it's just what happens during those two weeks. But that still doesn’t quite explain this particular muddle of pluralization, possession, and attribution. Why does the Sun appear white through clouds? As such, what one means when one says "two weeks' holiday" is actually "two weeks' worth of holiday" and likewise with, for example, notice and imprisonment. rev 2021.4.5.38984. Those are all fundamentally different constructions that say nothing about the question at hand here. Could an airliner reach Mach 1 in a zero-G powered dive and safely recover? Connect and share knowledge within a single location that is structured and easy to search. Yet that seems wrong, too: the hyphenate should be singular, two-week vacation (like two-tone shoes) because preceding adjectives are not declined for number. Holiday, without an S, is a singular noun that generally refers to a specific celebrated event or day. Why is the singular of “week” used in “two-week business trip”? 'a ten foot log of wood' [expressing length] – not 'a ten foot's log of wood', 'a three meter high wall' [expressing height] – not 'a three meter's high wall', 'a fifty mile long journey' [expressing distance] – not 'a fifty mile's long journey', 'a six kilo block of stone' [expressing weight] – not 'a six kilo's block of stone'. So in this argument the possessive/clitic actually stands in for the phrase "of". Given all this, why should “two weeks vacation” be written “two weeks’ vacation” with a possessive apostrophe? Show example If the period of time is singular, the apostrophe goes before the s: If the period of time is plural, the apostrophe goes after the s: Not everyone likes that tricksy little apostrophe, but now you know it’s earned its place you can’t leave it out for fear of looking silly, right? This line features on the Wikipedia page for genitive case: Modern English typically does not morphologically mark nouns for a genitive case in order to indicate a genitive construction; instead, it uses either the 's clitic or a preposition (usually of). If two U.S. What is the possessive form of month? This is like an ordinary possessive use. © Copyright Sarah Townsend 2021. IN a period (periods of time: week, month, year, 4 hours, morning, etc.) The holiday is all about the two of you. Must you tell the truth about your marital status on a passport application? Instead of just saying ‘I had a holiday’, you want to describe the holiday a bit more so you added the adjective ‘lovely’. 1. preceding adjectives are not declined for number. Two weeks. Get the attribute of the nearest line to a polygon. Don’t worry – if writing “I have 20 years’ experience” on your website or LinkedIn profile makes you pull a face, just replace the apostrophe with OF. One way to explain this is the phrase “two weeks of vacation” being contracted to “two weeks’ vacation” – the vacation is “of” the weeks; that is, it is possessed by them. This is backed up by one particular line on (unfortunately again) the English possessive Wikipedia page: The paraphrase with of is often un-idiomatic or ambiguous in these It's "three days' work" because of the fact that there are three days. seen it written both ways. Ok, this is the way I understood things: I took a week's holiday. Two weeks is not possessive. Chips in carbon frame - how worried should I be? 14. No, 'two weeks' is correct, While a week is a reference to a collection of days it is itself singular in nature. Instead, say “A two week holiday.” By saying weeks’, you are saying that the weeks own the holidays. I should also add that Alex Chaffee's comment in reply to another answer on this question is useful in pointing to the Wikipedia page on the noun adjunct which cites Fowler's Modern English Usage. No matter how hard I try to commit certain apostrophe rules to memory, I find myse lf re-Googling every year just to make sure I'm putting a holiday's apostrophe in the right place. Should “two weeks vacation” be written “two weeks’ vacation” with a possessive apostrophe? The former is perhaps better, as to conform to what is inevitable in the singular – a year's imprisonment, a fortnight's holiday." AT I get up at 9 o'clock I was there at noon (noon= 12:00 pm) You can come at lunch time ON I went to Berlin on Monday I was born on May 2nd My brother arrived on Christmas Day IN He was born in the 19th century She had her holidays in June Don't go to Egypt in summer "Five years' imprisonment, Three weeks' holiday, etc. one) then so is the word week, but if it's more than one, then you need to use the plural (weeks). Many families can’t afford a holiday away at any time of the year. English Language & Usage Stack Exchange is a question and answer site for linguists, etymologists, and serious English language enthusiasts. Apostrophe Placement in Holiday Names. paragraph 7.24 in CMOS 16. 2: The company owes me three weeks' holiday pay. While we diligently research and update our holiday dates, some of the information in the table above may be preliminary. How do I write the hashtag symbol # into an output file? "She is an inductee in the Podcasting Hall of Fame, and the show is a five-time winner of Best Education Podcast in the Podcast Awards. Why is the singular of “week” used in “two-week business trip”? Please help. To subscribe to this RSS feed, copy and paste this URL into your RSS reader.
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