[Ads-l] Possessive plurals

[Jonathan Lighter]

"You guys's" would seem to be sufficient for the Inglish of Tomorrow, but
"YOUR guys's" is a little much.

It seems to me that when I was very young - say, five - I may have used
some "-s's" forms.

But if so, I soon got over it.

JL

On Sun, Jun 25, 2023 at 2:31 PM Betty Birner <bbirner at niu.edu> wrote:

> 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."
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> 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."

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