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What do you think is right?The ... pale yellow smoke rose over the ... district.A) chimney's, minersB) chimneys, miners'C) chimney's, miner'sD) chimneys', minersE) chimneys, minersIn my opinion, there's no right answer and it's stuff and nonsense. I would not use possesive case with "chimney", and even if it is an attributive noun, it must be singular.As for "miner", I'd use "miner" or "miners' (without the article in front) "

Khoff · Accepted Answer

I believe there are two possible right answers, but I don't see either of them among the choices. I would accept either A or D if there were an apostrophe afer "miners." I would say:

The chimney's/chimneys' pale yellow smoke rose over the miners' district.

The sentence could be referring to the smoke of a single chimney or of many chimneys: it's not clear without more context. I suppose it could be talking about the district of a single miner or of many miners, but I find the latter much more likely.

I know that some learners of English are taught that the 's possessive can only be used with people or other animate nouns, but I don't know any native speakers who observe this "rule" (or are even aware of it, unless they learn of it though something like this forum). To my ear there is nothing wrong with "the chimney's/chimneys' pale yellow smoke." However, if you wanted to use "chimney" as an attibutive noun, as you seem to prefer, the order of the adjectives would have to change. It would have to be "the pale yellow chimney smoke," not "the chimney pale yellow smoke." Then you would have the ambiguity of whether the smoke is pale yellow, or the chimney itself. I think it has to be either "the chimney's/chimneys' pale yellow smoke" or "the pale yellow smoke of the chimney/chimneys", and both are acceptable to me.

You definitely need "the" before "miners' district."

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