On Tue, 26 Jul 2005 21:48:15 +0200, Simon Olofsson
<gath3n@usenet.arcornews.de> wrote:
> I'm just discussing with a friend if the spelling "Photograph's" is right.
> IMHO it should be Photographs. The sentence where it appears is:
> "Photograph's Masterpieces by Hanno" (Hanno is the name of my friend).
Apostrophe before 's' is used in two cases:
As an abbreviation for 'is' or 'has' ("it's raining" == "it is
raining"; "he's eaten breakfast" == "he has eaten breakfast");
As the possessive (genetive) case, when not a pronoun ("Harry's cat"
== "the cat of (belonging to) Harry", but "the cat has lost its way").
So as quoted "Photograph's Masterpieces by Hanno" means "Masterpieces of
the Photograph by Hanno". If that is what he means, he is correct. If
not then I'm not certain what it would mean, because "Photographs
Masterpieces" doesn't make much sense in English.
(Note that traditionally the possessive case for a word ending in 's'
naturally just takes an apostrophe, not apostrophe and 's'. So we would
say "the dogs' dinner" not "the dogs's dinner" if we meant "the dinner
of the dogs". With proper nouns -- names -- ending in 's' both forms
are acceptable, as in "Chris's coat" or "Chris' coat", but the former is
more usual at least in British English, especially when spoken rather
than written.)
Chris C
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