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Tuesday, 28 July 2009
Better Writing Skills Newsletter
One of my mentors is a fellow stickler for correct spellings, good grammar and proper use of punctuation - like me, an enthusiast for the English language. She told me about the Better Writing Skills Newsletter, a monthly email in which a writing consultant by the name of Tim North (who has a background in copy editing, proof reading, technical writing and consulting services as well as a BSc, MEd and GD to his name) answers the questions of his readers.
I've been receiving the newsletter for almost a year now and I tend to find something interesting in each edition. English is a very tricky langauge with uncountable sets of rules, all of which have exceptions and inconsistencies. There are always problems which come up in writing which even the most accomplished in the use of the English langauge are stumped by - and Tim aims to give an answer to a selection of these. People write in to him asking for advice and he recites their question and his answer in the monthly newsletter.
I wrote to him recently and he replied with a draft of this month's newsletter, answering my question. You can read this edition of the newsletter in the archive on the website (see July 2009). Here is the extract in which I am mentioned:
My first correspondent this month, Ben, wrote in with a question about apostrophes:
When referring to the possessive of two people (one being the speaker him or herself) -- for example a car belonging to me and Joe -- would I say "mine and Joe's car" or "Joe's and my car" or "me and Joe's car" or what!? None of them sound right. A similar example: Joe's and Mick's car (or is it "Joe and Mick's car?) None of the ways I can think of seem to be the right one -- so which is right?
Yes, Ben, this is certainly a confusing area. Fortunately, though, there are some simple guidelines that we can follow. Let's start with your second example. If Joe and Mick share the car then it's common to use a single apostrophe after the second name: Joe and Mick's car If they each have separate cars, though, they each get an apostrophe: Joe's and Mick's cars
Your earlier example ("mine and Joe's car") doesn't fit these guidelines, though, as pronouns (words like "I", "mine" and "me") don't take apostrophes. One guideline that will help us a little, though, is that it has traditionally been considered polite to put your own name second in such phrases. For example, rather than "mine and Joe's", we should prefer "Joe's and mine". Given that the pronoun can't take an apostrophe, we could attach it to the other name: Joe's and my car
This still sounds a little awkward, so you may prefer to use a different phrasing.
For example: Our car
Hope this helps.
You can subscribe to the newsletter at Scribe Consulting.
Labels: English Language
Posted by Ben Nuttall at 19:08 
