Apostrophe or not?

Question

Which, if any, of the following do you consider correct? in two weeks time  in two weeks' time  the students union  the students' union

Mentee · Accepted Answer

in two weeks' time

Anonymous · Answer

Also

the students' union

Rover_KE (still trying to log in with my user name).

Mentee · Answer

student's union is correct

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Students%27_union

What is the error you are getting when logging in?

Ivanhr · Answer

Mentee, the wikipedia article you're referencing explicitly says "students' union", just as Rover_KE has suggested.

Pedroski · Answer

Thanks for your reply.

I've been thinking about the basics of this.

What are known as possessive determiners, her house, his car can be traced back to genitive case versions of he and heo. But as soon as we move from them to John's car or Jane's car, the possessive cases of the Proper Nouns John or Jane are really just adjectives.

If you consider Students Union as a compound noun, there is a good case to be made for taking the plural noun Students, and combining it with the noun Union to form just that: Students Union, as opposed to taking the adjective Students' and using it with Union.
TUC is shown as Trades Union Congress on Merriam Webster's online dictionary.

May I ask on what basis you say, Students Union is wrong and Students' Union is right?

Pedroski · Answer

The possessive case in English is often unclear. To paraphrase 'in two weeks time' you might say 'within a time period of two weeks' It is easier to say 'in two weeks time' I wouldn't like to say 'in two weeks of time' or 'in a time of two weeks'

From a logical standpoint, I cannot see how 'two weeks' can possess 'time', which is what the genitive case is intended to indicate. 'two weeks' is time. So I would make the case for redundant apposition ('time') here, and prefer not to use the possessive apostrophe.

But I would enjoy hearing why you think that is wrong.

ps My paraphrasing used 'of', so I will quote this "Of shares with another word of the same length, as, the evil glory of being accessory to more crimes against grammar than any other." [Fowler]

Mentee · Answer

Although it hardly matters in informal speech, my decision for formal writing would be based by placing it in different contexts:

(What I have in the bracket is what is going in my mind as I read the sentence. The more I have to think on something, it becomes my least favorite choice):

Does your college have a students' union?(very obvious it must be 'a union of/for all students')
Does your college have a student union?(student functions as a pre-modifier (adjective-like), so associate it with union, that makes sense, took more effort but ok I have heard terms like 'student fees' and 'student days' before)
Does your college have a students union?(Did the person miss an apostrophe or something? Did the person intend to use students as a pre-modifier (adjective-like)? Then what is wrong with 'student'? Fine ok it must mean 'union for/of students')
Does your college have a student's union?(probably they have a union for each student? Not likely? Confused? Come to a conclusion after some deliberation)

Now let see the use as it would figure in names:
(http://www.google.co.in/search?q=universoty+Student+Union&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a)

For me Students' Union(first choice) and Student Union(second choice) are the most obvious choices.
Certain times, unions may choose the premodifier version i.e. drop the apostrophe ( I believe it must be for aesthetic reasons, is popularly accepted, and easy to pronounce).

If I have to refer to the term quite frequently in my article:
For an informed audience Student Union is my choice
For the general audience (who has never heard of Student Union) Students' Union is my choice.

I see it really as a matter of choice.

Pedroski · Answer

Very interesting, what is going on in your mind: Basically, a union would need more than one One would be a singularity. Do you agree?

If so, how can you have a union of one? A student union?

Anyway, Happy Year of the Dragon! ???? (If you can't see that, it says 'may all that you wish for come true')

Apostrophe or not?

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