[Ads-l] "Packer(s) game"

[Joel Berson]

Wouldn't the correct formulation be -s' ?  As in "the Yankees' game ...".

Joel

      From: Joe Salmons <jsalmons at WISC.EDU>
 To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU 
 Sent: Sunday, November 1, 2015 4:54 PM
 Subject: [ADS-L] "Packer(s) game"
   
A set of folks here in Wisconsin (mostly journalists) are tweeting up a storm about the -s on team names before the word ‘game’. So, ‘Badger game’ and ‘Packer game’ seem fine without an -s (hear them all the time here) and somebody reasonably suggests the same for ‘(Forty) Niner game’ and ‘Raider game’, but ‘Ram game’ and ‘Bear game’ seem very odd. I was wondering if it might be the -er suffixes but ‘Steeler game’ sounds slight off and ‘Boiler(maker) game’ really weird. One person suggests occupation names but Viking is basically the same ‘occupation’ as Raider and 'Viking game’ seems weird. ‘Yankee game’ seems to occur.

With ‘coach’ and other words instead of ‘game’ I can imagine more flexibility — ‘former Bear coach Mike Ditka’, ‘Niner quarterback Colin Kaepernick’. 

Anybody got a story about these? 

Thanks. And go Packers!

Joe

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