[Ads-l] Possessive plurals

[Betty Birner]

Friday night our (young) waiter said, “Can I get this board out of your guys’s way?”  Pronounced [gaizəz].  And honestly, I’m sure I’ve heard "your guys's" many times, and may have even uttered it myself.  FWIW, I'm about an hour north of Chicago.



-----Original Message-----
From: American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU> On Behalf Of Jonathan Lighter
Sent: Saturday, June 17, 2023 3:42 PM
To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
Subject: Re: Possessive plurals

External Email. Think before you click or reply.

Cf. "your guys's garage" (Apr. 24).

JL

On Wed, Jun 7, 2023 at 2:52 PM Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at yale.edu> wrote:

> > On Jun 7, 2023, at 2:06 PM, Jonathan Lighter 
> > <wuxxmupp2000 at GMAIL.COM>
> wrote:
> >
> > He's still doing it, even putting up on the screen for us "the cats's"
> and
> > "the humans's."
> >
> > JL
>
> And presumably "the foxes’s” (= “fak-siziz”) and "the lynxes’s"
> (“link-siziz”)
>
>
> >
> > On Wed, May 31, 2023 at 12:02 PM Jonathan Lighter <
> wuxxmupp2000 at gmail.com>
> > wrote:
> >
> >> I've been watching these Latin lessons on YouTube:
> >> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aWUlrL6E_QU
> >>
> >> The instructor (a native speaker of English evidently, and
> >> youthful-sounding)  is clearly well educated, and he knows Latin.
> >>
> >> However, he says "abLAYtive" instead of "ABlative." He also talks 
> >> about "female," "male," and "neutral" nouns instead of masculine, 
> >> feminine,
> and
> >> neuter. More to the point, though, he routinely pronounces English 
> >> possessive plurals with an excrescent "iz."
> >>
> >> Exx: students' > "studentsiz"
> >>        soldiers'   > "soldierziz."
> >>
> >> Is this something we should be doing? Or is it just a pedagogical 
> >> stratagem?
> >>
> >> JL
> >> --
> >> "If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the
> truth."
> >>
> >
> >
> > --
> > "If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the
> truth."
> >
> > ------------------------------------------------------------
> > The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>


--
"If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the truth."

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

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