English question...

joanna bujes joanna.bujes at ebay.sun.com
Thu Apr 25 15:35:48 PDT 2002


This is soooo embarrasing...

Starting in the mid eighties, I started to notice that a large percentage of my students confused the genitive with the plural ending: "Her parent's went to church. The grandmothers pies were the best." etc.

I could not figure out how exactly the collective American mind had short-circuited into this stuff, but the evidence was there before me every time I graded a paper.

Now, I'm doing it. So, all you current/former English teachers and editors: is it EVER correct to specify a plural ending with an 's???

I see this in technical writing ALL the time: "To broadcast a message, specify a list of url's for the destinations."

????

Joanna



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