I know my grammar and punctuation quite well, but yesterday I found myself positively perplexed by a question concerning an apostrophe.
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For a seminar advertisement, the writer went with the title "Horticulturalist Professionals Seminar." She asked me where the apostrophe would go. Of course, I said after the "s" on "Professionals" since it's plural. By then I started wondering about the actual possession going on, and I realized there really is no possession. The professionals don't own the seminar; it's just for them.
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Is this a case of the attributive noun, or is it actually possession?
I lean toward it being attributive but I can easily see it as possessive. Â There are many instances where a possessive is used when the meeting or maybe a place, like a school or a church, exists to serve a group of people. Â It can then properly be said that it belongs to them. Â That said, I still think this is an attributive noun.
That's what I tend to think as well.
John is taking calculus in a night class at the local college. Last night John's class ran late.
Wait a minute: John's class? He doesn't own the class does he? If anything, it's the professor's class, or the college's class, not John's. But the class is for John. Well, not specifically, but in the sense that he is participating, he (and the rest of the students) "possess" it. Is "my" birthday party mine? If I didn't plan it, didn't bake the cake, didn't buy the favors, didn't even know it was happening? Do I own it? Do I possess it? I don't think so. It is "for" me, so in that sense it is mine. Whether the seminar is held by the Horticultural Professionals for non-HPs, by them for their own benefit, or by someone else for them doesn't matter: they possess it just as much as John does his class. Put in the apostrophe.
How's that for midnight logic?
Peter
For a long time I wondered about this, but in the last decade or two I've concluded that it's all a big misunderstanding. Â The term "possessive" notwithstanding, the possessive form does not (necessarily) indicate ownership, merely association in some way.
If you doubt it, you will have to cull from your language all of the following terms: my teacher, my dad, my God, my apartment, my bus, my religion, my favorite author, my job, my responsibilities, my skills, my education, my college, my diploma, my marriage, my understanding, my book (the one I wrote, I mean), my country, my language, my route, my dream, my ambition, my post, my words, my speech, my lunch-time, my friends, my travels, my body, my disease, my cowlick, my fear, my platoon, my flight, mein kampf, my idea, my grievance, my joy... Â No need to go on; you get the idea.
My uncertainty would be about whether "horticulturalist is plural or singular. Â You could, after all, have a horticultural professional's seminar. Â Either one would work equally well, as far as I can tell.