[Ads-l] Dangling possessive

Fri Oct 7 17:24:47 UTC 2022

I agree with Paul too. The construction, if sometimes awkward, sounds
perfectly natural to me (though not always in writing).

JL

On Thu, Oct 6, 2022 at 11:27 PM Paul A Johnston <paul.johnston at wmich.edu>
wrote:

> I use tnat all the time.  From 1983, referring to Gerry Rafferty's "Baker
> Street"--"Hugh's got the sax player on that;'s alnum."  My Scottish wife
> thought that was amazing.  I call it a delayed possessive.
> ________________________________
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> Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at YALE.EDU>
> Sent: Thursday, October 6, 2022 4:08 PM
> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Subject: Re: Dangling possessive
>
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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at YALE.EDU>
> Subject:      Re: Dangling possessive
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Maybe not, but "The woman I'm engaged to's brother" isn't so unlikely in
> speech, although probably it would get edited out of prose. Or even "the
> possessive construction I'm working on's idiosyncrasies"
>
>
>
> On Thu, Oct 6, 2022 at 3:25 PM Dan Goncharoff <thegonch at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > What if the last word of the phrase didn't happen to be a noun?
> >
> > Replace "A Republican gubernatorial candidate
> > in Colorado" with "A Republican gubernatorial candidate despite what the
> > party is up to". I don't think it works.
> >
> > On Thu, Oct 6, 2022, 1:16 PM Andy Bach <afbach at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > > Doesn't it work? Say if you replace "A Republican gubernatorial
> candidate
> > > in Colorado" with "Bill" so
> > >  "Bill's claims that students are dressing up as cats and other furry
> > > animals has been widely denied by a selection of school districts in
> the
> > > state."
> > >
> > > though I guess it'd be "have been"
> > >
> > > On Thu, Oct 6, 2022 at 8:39 AM Dan Goncharoff <thegonch at gmail.com>
> > wrote:
> > >
> > > > It does reflect how one speaks, if not how one writes.
> > > >
> > > > On Thu, Oct 6, 2022, 12:51 AM victor steinbok <aardvark66 at gmail.com>
> > > > wrote:
> > > >
> > > > > I was surprised when I read the first graf of this story. It's easy
> > to
> > > > see
> > > > > where the structural defect came from but proofreaders failed to
> > catch
> > > > it.
> > > > >
> > > > >
> > > > >
> > > > >
> > > >
> > >
> >
> https://nam11.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.independent.co.uk%2Fnews%2Fworld%2Famericas%2Fus-politics%2Fheidi-ganahl-colorado-furries-identify-b2196410.html%3Famp&data=05%7C01%7Cpaul.johnston%40WMICH.EDU%7C6f68acab51b1411cf14908daa7d685ee%7C257622517aa94c72905f39bf026a8a84%7C0%7C0%7C638006837057220752%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C3000%7C%7C%7C&sdata=gGP0aYXpOfDrp%2BWG7BG87NhoRYetCzKHwCOjpO%2BMCy8%3D&reserved=0
> > > > >
> > > > > A Republican gubernatorial candidate in Colorado's claims that
> > students
> > > > are
> > > > > dressing up as cats and other furry animals has been widely denied
> > by a
> > > > > selection of school districts in the state.
> > > > >
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> > > >
> > >
> > >
> > > --
> > >
> > > a
> > >
> > > Andy Bach,
> > > afbach at gmail.com
> > > 608 658-1890 cell
> > > 608 261-5738 wk
> > >
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