The Perfect English Grammar Workbook: Simple Rules and Quizzes to Master Today's English by Lisa McLendon

Author:Lisa McLendon [McLendon, Lisa]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Publisher: Zephyros Press
Published: 2017-01-10T05:00:00+00:00

PRACTICE EXERCISE 8.1

COMPOUND NOUNS

Go to your usual dictionary, and after the entry for middle, see how it renders middle + the following words (look at the nouns, not adjectives):

1. age

2. school

3. ground

4. man

5. weight

KEY FOR PRACTICE EXERCISE 8.1

These may vary by dictionary, but probably you’ll see middle age, middle school and middle ground as open compound nouns, and middleman, and middleweight as closed.

8.2 Possessives

When we want to indicate that someone or something belongs to or is associated with someone or something else, we use a possessive form.

Making nouns possessive is pretty straightforward: add apostrophe-s. For singular nouns, this is all you need to do: Miranda’s award, my brother’s bike, the restaurant’s specials, the class’s assignment. If the noun is plural and already ends in -s, just add an apostrophe: the businesses’ lobbyist, the candidates’ debate. If the noun is plural and doesn’t already end in -s, add apostrophe -s: children’s books, people’s interests.

Only the last word of a noun phrase gets made possessive: Peggy and Mike’s boat, the University of Illinois and Northwestern’s joint program.

Sometimes possession is indicated by an of phrase, and generally this is used for emphasis or when it makes a string of possessives clearer, like my best friend’s sister’s boyfriend’s brother’s girlfriend becomes the girlfriend of the brother of my best friend’s sister’s boyfriend.

Please do not use apostrophe-s to make a noun plural. Never. I will remind you about this again in section 8.6 because it’s that important.

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