Decker

You're right. It's a fucking terrible analogy that proves nothing. It was fun to write though.

Still, I think you just got hung up on the plural and therefor didn't think you needed an apostrophe. Remove that condition and it's obvious that you need an 's in these cases. Here's an easy way to prove that nouns defined by a unit of time are possessive : if a house rents for $1000 a month and you pay the landlord $12,000 in advance (plus security deposit), how much rent have you paid?
One Year's Worth
You wound never say One Years Worth, right? And One Year Worth sounds wrong, doesn't it?

Now make it $24.000. How much rent have you paid?
Two Years' Worth

Quatermass

I think you mean sniper's bullets - or is it snipers' bullets? Maybe snipers' bullets' impact?

orangerunner

Menace II Society
Love Don't Cost a Thing
Pet Sematary
She's Gotta Have It
Nobody's Perfekt

Alan Smithee

Jungle 2 Jungle

HN

Tooken

Norm de Plume

Just remembered another: Don't Go in the House

Decker

Never heard of it, but where's the grammatical error in the sentence "Don't go in the house"? I suppose "Don't go into the house" is probably better, but I don't think the other sentence is wrong, is it?

GuessWho

Don't take it as a question, take it as a statement describing Judge Doom.

Who is he? He's the guy who framed Roger Rabbit. <--period

Norm de Plume

Yes, as you wrote, it should be Don't Go Into the House. I don't know the grammatical terminology that covers this situation, but one doesn't "go in" somewhere or, for instance, "put a kettle on the stove". It should be "into" and "onto".

Decker

I was thinking about it last night : While that's a grammatically better way to structure a sentence, in an urgent admonishment (for example to a child trying to enter a burning building), wouldn't you probably yell "Don't go in the house!" rather than the more grammatically correct "Don't go into the house!"?
On some level, that first admonishment tells the kid to get the hell out of the area while the second only lets the child know that he shouldn't actually enter the burning structure. I don't know if I can explain it better than that, but somehow "Don't go in the house" seems more urgent.

Norm de Plume

Most people use that in the normal course of conversation or writing, true, but it's wrong because one simply can't "go in" something. One can be in the house, but "going" denotes movement, which requires into.
It gets a little murky when one is talking about something that isn't an enclosed space. "Putting the toy into the box" is clearly correct to me. "Going into the house" is clearly correct to me. However, what about when one says, "I'm going in/into the ocean"? I don't know the answer to that conundrum, since one isn't exactly "entering" the ocean, but rather swimming atop it, in essence. Even we grammar sticklers struggle with some usage questions.

Abob Teff

He's also playing first base.

Decker

and its upcoming sequel



Is that the British was to show possession to a name that ends with an "S"?

RichC2

That one is debated. CMOS (Chicago Manual of Style) says 's after all names ending in s, the Associated Press says only an apostrophe after names ending in s, the New York Times says it depends on how it is pronounced.

GhostLee

The Age of Stupid

Shannon Nutt

Decker: Jones's IS grammatically correct.


We can blame AOL on this one, but since it's also a movie:

You've Got Mail

Norm de Plume

I concur with the CMOS.

Jon2

When I was in high school (which may or may not predate the CMOS) we were taught that using either was correct.

Decker

I assume we're talking Proper Names only. You wouldn't describe the United States's trade deficit.

cultshock

IMO, if you pronounce the possessive form of the surname by adding an "es" sound at the end, it would be spelled with a 's. But on the other hand, my last name ends with an s but sounds extremely awkward if someone pronounces the possessive form with an "es" at the end (although some people try). That's why I would always spell it with just the apostrophe at the end (not that I need to spell the possessive form of my last name very often!). But obviously there is no universally agreed rule on this.