Resources
Double Possessive II
Magnificent Possession
By Evan Jenkins
What to do about situations like
“China and South Korea's rise to challenge Japan's position…”?
That’s how it was printed, and that’s one solution: with a string of possessive nouns, attach the apostrophe and the “s” only to the last one and assume the reader will understand the earlier ones as possessive, too.
But with anything more complicated than “Dick and Jane’s house,” that approach is hardly a bullseye. It’s marginally acceptable at best, and can be quite tough to follow, as in
“Dr. Hwang and his team’s production of stem cells …was considered…”
This is another approach to the general problem:
“… Mr. Abramoff's and Mr. Scanlon's Indian clients”
But that’s a bit cluttered, and with a longer series would be more than a bit.
The optimum solution is to get the possessive notion out of the way first: “The rise of China and South Korea …”; “The production of stem cells by Dr. Hwang and his team ... was considered”; “The Indian clients of Mr. Abramoff and Mr. Scanlon.”
Much closer to a bullseye.
CJR
