Posessive of a Posessive

Factual Questions
1

While playing Chess today, I said, speaking of pawns, “The Queen’s is safe, it’s the King’s that’s screwed.”

Here I use “Queen’s” instead of “Queen’s pawn.” I think this is fairly standard usage.

Now what if I were commenting on the bases of these two pawns–maybe one is scuffed and the other is not. I might say, for one thing, “This pawn’s base is scuffed, this one’s is not.” Or I might say, in some contexts, “This pawn’s is scuffed, and this pawn’s is not.” But it seems like I should be able to talk about the two pawns in “King and Queen” terms as well–“The Queen’s pawn’s base is scuffed, the King’s pawn’s is not.” But using the principle that let’s me go from “Queen’s pawn” to just “Queen’s,” and “Pawn’s base” to just “Pawn’s,” it seems like I should be able to say something like “The queen’s’ is scuffed, the Kings’s’ is not.” Notice the two apostrophes in each case, one before the s and one after.

I think it’s fine to say this. My question is, how would you write it? (Maybe in order to record dialogue, if you are wondering why you would ever write such a monstrosity down.) Just as I have? Or is there some other convention?

-FrL-

2

I’d probably write “queen’s’s”. Ack, no, I guess I wouldn’t, that looks awful. But if I had to write the monstrosity down verbatim, I don’t think I have a choice; the only other choice I see would be “queen’s’”, with two apostrophes but no final “s”, but that wouldn’t work for me: I follow the general convention, when making a possessive of a word already ending in “s”, of indicating an “s” after the apostrophe when I pronounce an “iz” afterwards, and leaving it off otherwise. Thus, “the five cats’ food” or “my kids’ school” but “the dress’s seams” and “Gus’s house”. Keeping with this convention, I’d have to go with “the queen’s’s”, which reflects how I’d pronounce that word to indicate my intent.

3

English has the virtue of being able to construct a possessive with either the preposition “of” or the “-'s” construction, and I’d tend to try to form the double possessive using both. “The base of the queen’s is scuffed.” “Ten employees of Sibley’s…” where “Sibley’s” is the name of a store.

4

[QUOTE=Frylock]
I think it’s fine to say this. My question is, how would you write it? (Maybe in order to record dialogue, if you are wondering why you would ever write such a monstrosity down.) Just as I have? Or is there some other convention?

-FrL-
[/QUOTE]

How would you say it in a way that would require two apostrophes?

I don’t get the two apostrophes. It’s still one possessive. If you’re going from “The queen’s pawn’s base” it’s still just “the queen’s.”

Even if what you actually say sounds like “queenses” which I’m betting it doesn’t.

5

[QUOTE=Hilarity N. Suze]
How would you say it in a way that would require two apostrophes?

I don’t get the two apostrophes. It’s still one possessive. If you’re going from “The queen’s pawn’s base” it’s still just “the queen’s.”

Even if what you actually say sounds like “queenses” which I’m betting it doesn’t.
[/QUOTE]

I had a senior moment or something, during which time I thought that the appropriate way to make the posessive in writing out of a singular which ends in ‘s’ is just to add an apostrophe. I now recall, after having read Indistinguishable’s post, that this rule is for making the posessive of a plural. Singulars ending in s get an apostrophe plus another s.

So even with this correction, it still looks to me as though in a case like the one I describe, you can use two apostrophes: Queen’s’s and King’s’s and so on.

My “reasoning” (such as it is) goes something like this:

“Queen’s Pawn’s base” == “Queen’s Pawn” + " 's " + “Base,” and “Queen’s Pawn” can become simply “Queen’s,” giving us “Queen’s” + " 's " + “Base,” or without the plus signs, “Queen’s’s Base,” which can again be simplified into “Queen’s’s.”

Another way of articulating it: When you turn “Queen’s Pawn” into “Queen’s,” the new word “Queen’s” is a noun. Nouns are the kind of thing that can recieve posessives, and I see no reason to think this noun can’t recieve a posessive. When I think of sentences where I would add a posessive to this noun, it doesn’t seem to me the two posessive suffixes collapse into each other. Instead of saying “Kweenz,” I would say “Kweenziz.” (This may not be how everyone would say it, though.)

If my usage here is standard, then I wonder what the standard way to write it would be. If my usage here is not standard, then that’s okay too.

6

Nope, sorry. You can’t use double apostrophes like that. That is not standard. Queen’s is the way to write it in all cases.

The only possible use for double apostrophes in English would be with dialectical contractions. Even those would only be used to represent speech. They have no formal use in standard written English.

7

[QUOTE=Exapno Mapcase]
Nope, sorry. You can’t use double apostrophes like that. That is not standard. Queen’s is the way to write it in all cases.
[/QUOTE]

That double apostrophes is unstandard is easy for me to accept, but that “Queen’s” can be standardly used for the case of the OP is harder for me to swallow. Consider something like “John’s kid’s friend”. Can you really use “John’s friend” in standard English to indicate the same thing? I imagine you can’t; that it’s not merely a serious potential ambiguity, but that you simply can’t use that phrase in that way, that it is not capable of meaning anything other than the friend of John. Perhaps you can’t standardly write “John’s’s friend” either, but this at least seems more justified: you can substitute “John’s” for “John’s kid” in many contexts (“Who went to the store? One of the kids, right?” “Yeah, John’s went to the store”), but I can’t imagine you can substitute “John’s” for “John’s kid’s” in any context.

(Of course, the OP’s situation is a little more complicated, because we further reduce from “John’s’s friend” to “John’s’s” by the same process that took us from “John’s kid” to just “John’s”, but I don’t think this essentially changes anything about the acceptability of “John’s’s” vs. “John’s” in these sort of contexts)

8

[QUOTE=Exapno Mapcase]
Nope, sorry.
[/quote]

…why are you apologizing?

-FrL-

9

[QUOTE=Frylock]
I had a senior moment or something, during which time I thought that the appropriate way to make the posessive in writing out of a singular which ends in ‘s’ is just to add an apostrophe. I now recall, after having read Indistinguishable’s post, that this rule is for making the posessive of a plural. Singulars ending in s get an apostrophe plus another s.
[/QUOTE]

Incidentally, when I said above that I followed “the general convention [blah blah]”, I may have spoken misleadingly. I just meant that it was a convention of mine which I generally followed, not that it was a convention generally followed by the public at large which I adhered to. What the public at large does is murky and people (myself probably included) aren’t entirely consistent, doing things one way or another in certain cases as the mood strikes them: see this discussion of the Supreme Court’s apostrophe usage, for example. (And, for more amusement from the same source about possessives and final esses and pronunciation and whatnot, this is good too.)

10

“The Queen’s is scruffed” could mean EITHER “The Queen’s base is scruffed” or the “The Queen’s pawn’s base is scruffed,” if I understand the situation you’re posing. The potential ambiguity says to me that you need to include one of the other nouns (pawn or base) to make your comment clear. That would avoid the question altogether.

But I think Polycarp nailed this one. If you want to talk about something owned by Joe’s Diner, which is called Joe’s, you just say “Joe’s cash register”… not “Joe’s’s.”

11

The problem is your idea that there must be one [’s] attached to the queen for each moment of possession.

Queen’s pawn: one possession, one [’s], one queen
queen’s pawn’s base: two possessions, two [’s]'s,* one queen.
queen’s pawn’s base’s patina’s flaw: three possessions, three [’s]'s,* still only one queen.

Since there is only ever one queen, she can only ever have one [’s], no matter how many possessions her possessions have. If you did say “the queenzuzuzuz flaw,” you’d be saying “the queen’s […]'s […]'s […]'s flaw.” You probably would write that without the spaces, brackets, and elipses, but in that case the apostrophes would have a double function: to hang the possessive ess, but also to indicate that you’re contracting words.

*Chicago MoS says you can use the apostrophe to form the plural in cases like this.

12

English has an unusual advantage among languages in that we have a choice of two different ways to make a possessive: Either -'s or with “of.” It allows a fairly graceful double possessive construction-- “the base of the queen’s pawn.”

Another possible alternative, thanks to the flexibility of English grammar, would be to use the simple noun as an appositive modifier-- “the queen pawn’s base.” But I like the first option better.

13

[QUOTE=Dr. Drake]
The problem is your idea that there must be one [’s] attached to the queen for each moment of possession.
[/quote]

To be clear, I don’t think there must be one posessive suffix for each moment of posession, rather, I think there can be one posessive suffix for each moment of posession.

Past two suffixes, of course, the word would almost always be so confusing that I would never recommend its use. Bu the word pronounced “Kweenzez” (two suffixes) doesn’t seem that unnatural or confusing to me. Once I’m in a context where “Queen’s” is used unproblematically as a noun by itself, the doubly-suffixed word “queen’s’s” (or however you want to write it) doesn’t seem to me to cause a problem.

I should try it out, see if other people catch the meaning, or even notice anything strange

-FrL-

14

*Queen’s’s is definitely nonstandard. Unless you’re on the fo’c’sle of a ship, 'tain’t gonna see any double apostrophes in English.

Also, in your OP, you wouldn’t say, “This pawn’s is scuffed, and this pawn’s is not.” It would go “This pawn’s base is scuffed, and that pawn’s is not” (“that” is slightly better than “this” in this context). You could also say, “This pawn’s scuffed and that pawn’s not,” but that’s not possessive (it’s a contraction).

In the example, you would use “The queen’s pawn’s base is scuffed.” Just because you can come up with a logical explanation for a usage, it doesn’t mean it’s correct; English is not like math, and sentences aren’t equations.

15

[QUOTE=RealityChuck]

Also, in your OP, you wouldn’t say, “This pawn’s is scuffed, and this pawn’s is not.”
[/quote]

Maybe you wouldn’t, but I would, and in fact I described my use of just such a construction in my OP. No one at the time seemed to think I had done anything unusual.

In particuar conversational contexts, “Noun+Possessive Noun” constructions can be shortened to just “Noun+Posessive,” the resulting word being treated as a noun. Well, I should say, this is true in the language I speak. It may not be true in yours, though I’d be suprised if it weren’t.

In fact, I had originally written in the post you’re referring to, “I know language does not work like math, but I’m not trying to argue that this is correct, I’m just articulating the logic behind what I think is an allowable usage.” I deleted that sentence because I wasn’t sure I needed it, and I wasn’t sure I had made it as clear as it needed to be.

In any case, I disagree with your judgment that I would use “The queen’s pawn’s base is scuffed.” I agree I could use it, and would in many contexts. But in some contexts, I don’t think I would use it. I can easily imagine myself saying “Queen’s’s” given the right context–a context in which “Queen’s” has been well established as the natural thing to call the Queen’s Pawn for present conversational purposes.

Like I said above, I’m going to have to try this out on people and see if they understand it and to see if they seem to think there’s anything strange about my saying it.

-FrL-

In fact, here’s what I think I would actually say, usually: “The queen one is scuffed, the king’s idn’.” :slight_smile:

16

[QUOTE=RealityChuck]

In the example, you would use “The queen’s pawn’s base is scuffed.” Just because you can come up with a logical explanation for a usage, it doesn’t mean it’s correct; English is not like math, and sentences aren’t equations.
[/QUOTE]

I agree. I can’t ever imagine uttering a sentence like “the queenzes is scuffed” to mean “the queen’s pawn’s base is scuffed.” It sounds wrong on so many levels and is confusing. Personally, I would either say “the queen’s pawn’s base is scuffed” or “the queen pawn’s base is scuffed” or “the queen('s) pawn’s is scuffed” if we’re dropping words, as the OP is doing. I can’t imagine a situation where I would want to drop both “pawn” and “base” in conversation.

17

[QUOTE=Frylock]
…why are you apologizing?

-FrL-
[/QUOTE]

I was being polite. That’s an unusual attitude around here, I know. I won’t do it again. :slight_smile:

Sorry, but you’re completely wrong in your later posts.

Darn!

No matter what you say or how you phrase it, people will hear queen’s’s as queen’s because queen’s’s is an impossible construction in English. Or else they’ll ask you: “Queenseseseses? Dude, what are you smoking?”

The only alternative in formal language is to rewrite the sentence to remove ambiguity. In spoken language you can explain afterward if someone is confused, but you’ll have to realize that they will parse the sentence as having one possessive per word.

In reality, what you will do unthinkingly and naturally as a native speaker of English is recast the sentence as you did: “The queen one is scuffed, the king’s idn’.” Because your brain is incapable of spontaneously generating queen’s’s.

18

[QUOTE=Exapno Mapcase]
I was being polite. That’s an unusual attitude around here, I know. I won’t do it again. :slight_smile:

Sorry, but you’re completely wrong in your later posts.

Darn!

[/quote]

I can’t say anything to the rest of your post, as it appears to me we just have a fundamental clash of intuitions here. There’s nothing for it but empirical reseach.

As to “sorry,” in fact, saying “sorry” in the way you have comes across as rude, not polite. Of course, this, too, might simply involve a fundamental clash of intuitions. But to me, it sounds smart-aleky.

-FrL-

19

[QUOTE=Frylock]
As to “sorry,” in fact, saying “sorry” in the way you have comes across as rude, not polite. Of course, this, too, might simply involve a fundamental clash of intuitions. But to me, it sounds smart-aleky.
[/QUOTE]

Sorry.

20

[QUOTE=Exapno Mapcase]
Sorry.
[/QUOTE]

:stuck_out_tongue:

-FrL-