The False Possessive

[Baker, John]

        In the midst of Jon's eloquent and insightful posts, I was
struck by his rhetorical question, "Who today follows the
nineteenth-century dictum to 'avoid the false possessive'?"  Partly this
was because I had never actually heard of the false possessive.
Predictably, there is somebody who follows (or purports to follow) that
dictum.  As it turns out, it's The Economist, which says in its Style
Guide,
http://www.economist.com/research/styleGuide/index.cfm?page=673933:
"And avoid the false possessive: London's Heathrow Airport."  The
Economist does not bother to explain exactly why this should be avoided.

        MWDEU calls this "genitive with inanimate nouns" (on page 475)
and, of course, says it is perfectly standard.


 John Baker

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org