Plural possessives are tricky

When I saw “men’s’ clothing” with two apostrophes, I figured it must be a typo. I was editing a professional writer who’s been on the job for years, and I know from experience that writers make typos, but none — none of them — think that two apostrophes go in “men’s’ clothing.”

But then I saw “women’s’ clothing,” with two apostrophes. Then “children’s’ clothing.”
That’s when I knew that what I was witnessing was not a single accidental strike of an apostrophe key. Instead, it was the weirdest take on plural possessives I’ve ever seen.

Most writers, in my experience, stumble on plural possessives — even writers who have no problem with singular possessives or plurals that aren’t possessive.
They understand that the tail of a dog is the dog’s tail, singular possessive. And they understand that when one dog joins another dog, you have two dogs, plural, not possessive. But when they have to apply both those rules to the same word, they start to lose their grasp on them.

For regular nouns like “dog,” making the plural possessive isn’t tough. Many get it right: “the dogs’ tails,” with the plural S followed by the possessive apostrophe. But nouns with irregular plurals, like “man,” “woman” and “child” trip them up. Throw in some confusing expressions like “each other,” and almost everyone loses their grasp on how to use apostrophes: childrens’? childrens? childs’? They’re not sure.

So what’s the trick to writing plural possessives correctly? Just remember these basic rules and don’t get frazzled. To make a plural noun that ends in S possessive, add an apostrophe: kids’ clothes. If you want to make possessive a plural irregular noun that does not end in S, like children, add both an apostrophe and also an S: children’s clothes.

It’s easy. Or it should be. But plural possessives get confusing because the letter S has too many jobs in English and they all get jumbled in our heads.
In English, S is used to form plurals. To talk about more than one dog, you add S: dogs.

S also forms possessives of nouns: the cat’s pajamas.

S is also used for verb conjugations. For the verb “let,” for instance, the third-person form is “lets”: he lets the cat out.

S also stands in for not one but several different words in contractions, where it adds an extra layer of confusion by pairing with an apostrophe. “It’s raining” means “It is raining,” with the letter S serving as an abbreviated form of “is.” But in “Who’s been sleeping in my bed,” the S stands for “has.” And in “Let’s eat,” the S represents the word “us,” which is hard to remember because no one says, “let us eat.”
Then come even more curveballs. You can read about them here in my recent column.

Should fiction writers care about grammar?

A while back, a writer friend was teaching a fiction writing class and asked me some questions on behalf of some students who were struggling with grammar.

 I answered her questions — straightforward stuff about sentence-ending prepositions and placement of adverbs. Only afterward did I notice the nagging doubt in the pit of my stomach. These were fiction writers and I, indirectly, had them thinking about language “rules.” I could tell by the questions coming from Naomi that, as her students turned their focus to grammar, they were worrying about making mistakes and embarrassing themselves by exposing their imperfect grammar.

For fiction writers, this fear can be counterproductive. How can you focus on story and message and voice and character and description when you’re afraid every preposition or introductory phrase could be your downfall?

When you think about this long enough, you could easily conclude that fiction writers shouldn’t worry about grammar. But anyone who’s ever agreed to read a friend’s “novel in progress” knows the flip side of this argument. Grammar and punctuation errors aren't always nitpicky, minor things. They can make a big difference in the overall quality of a written work.

So what exactly is the role of grammar for the creative writer? Should he learn and follow the rules? Or should he cast them aside in the name of creative freedom?

The more I think about this, the more I think the answer is neither. Or perhaps both. I think that fiction writers who want to defy every grammar rule and convention under the sun should do so without hesitation. But the best way to get away with breaking the rules is by demonstrating a mastery of grammar.

Take for example the structure “might could.” That’s probably not one you want to use in a paper in an MBA program. “The leading economic indicators suggest that the GDP might could improve in the coming quarter.” Yet I’ve seen fiction writers like George R.R. Martin and Kerry Madden use “might could” to great effect. Martin uses it to strike a medieval tone in his “Game of Thrones” books. Madden used it in “Gentle’s Holler” to give her characters a Southern/rural voice.

Readers get it. It’s clear that the writers are using “might could” quite deliberately and not out of the belief that it’s more proper than a simple “might” or “could.”

What does that tell us about the grammar “requirements” on fiction writers? Well, it seems to me that if Martin or Madden had littered their manuscripts with “it’s” in place of “its,” the word “alot,” or evidence they don’t know “their” from “they’re,” they wouldn’t have earned the license to use structures that people consider “nonstandard” – terms like “might could” and “ain’t” and awkward double negatives and sentence fragments. (Indeed, they never would have been published in the first place.)

And from that perspective, I can see clearly the importance of grammar for fiction writers. For them, grammar is important. They should know as much as possible about syntax and usage rules and punctuation and word choice and spelling. But, whenever they feel it's appropriate, they should ignore those rules completely. Once a fiction writer has demonstrated that he knows his craft, readers will give him the benefit of the doubt in all his language choices. But if it’s clear he has bad grammar, every departure from the “proper” can and will be chalked up to ignorance.

Dissatisfied and unsatisfied

Have you ever thought about the difference between “dissatisfied” and “unsatisfied”? Neither have I. At least, not until I was flipping through my copy of Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary of English Usage recently.
If this book has a regular shtick, it’s debunking popular language prohibitions. For example: have you ever heard it’s wrong to split an infinitive? Well, this book will give you an earful on that one, making it quite clear there’s no such rule.

So I was more than a little surprised recently when I was thumbing through the usage guide and saw this: “dissatisfied, unsatisfied” Though ‘dissatisfied and unsatisfied appear to be synonyms, there are distinctions evident in the usage examples in the Merriam-Webster files.” (By the way, that’s what most language authorities base their opinions on: usage examples. That’s what academics do, too.)

The guide continues: “These examples show that ‘unsatisfied’ is more frequently used to modify nonhuman terms (such as ambition, debts, curiosity, demands, claims) than human ones and that in all instances the meaning is generally of something or someone being ‘unfulfilled’ or ‘unappeased.’”
The examples the book gives include published excerpts saying “… the curiosity was unsatisfied” and “a large unsatisfied demand for education.”

Then the book gives examples of dissatisfied, showing how it usually applies to people or groups and means “not pleased or gratified.” “Dissatisfied landowners stopped action” is one of the book’s examples.

Merriam-Webster’s usage guide makes clear that there’s some crossover. And a look at dictionary definitions proves there’s some overlap.

Webster’s New World College Dictionary defines “dissatisfied” as “not satisfied; displeased.” This dictionary doesn’t contain a definition for “unsatisfied.” So we have to think of it as a form of “satisfy” negated by the prefix “un.”

Because “un” can negate something, “unsatisfied” also means “not satisfied,” just as “dissatisfied” does.
According to this dictionary, the two words are overlapping. So it makes it that much more interesting that, in common usage — at least as far as Merriam-Webster’s usage guide can see — they’re not.

Spot the complete sentence

Can you tell which of the following, if any, are complete sentences?

Outside!

Now!

Stop!

Onward!

Beautiful!

Here’s your first hint: Yes, one of these is a complete sentence. But only one. The rest aren’t errors, mind you. There’s nothing wrong with punctuating an incomplete sentence as if it were complete. When you do so, it’s called a sentence fragment. And writers — even many of the very best writers — use sentence fragments all the time.

A while back, I wrote in a column that "onward" and "outside" are not complete sentences, which irked some readers. If you yell either of these words at someone, they argued, your point is 100% clear and complete. So why was I being such a pain and refusing to acknowledge they’re complete sentences?

Answer: Just because a thought is clear and complete doesn’t make it a complete sentence.

A complete sentence must contain at least one clause. A clause is a subject and a verb, and neither can be left implied, with one exception: Imperatives, that is, commands, always leave their subjects implied. It’s not a problem because the subject is always the same: “you.” So when you tell someone “Eat!” the subject is already built in to the verb, if you will.

But in four of our five sentences above, not only is there no subject, there’s no verb either. Outside! Now! Onward! and Beautiful! aren't verbs. Yes, they make clear the verbs that they’re implying. (Go) outside! (Do it) now! (Move) onward! (That is) beautiful! But verbs must be explicit in order to make a complete sentence.

So  on our list only Stop! is a complete sentence because it’s the only one that meets the criteria of having a verb (which must be explicit) and a subject (which, in commands only, can be left implied.)