How many ['s] in one sentence?

Question

What is the maximum number of times can one use possessive ('s) in one sentence before it looks clumsy? At what point should 'of' be used instead of "'s"? For example, does the following sentence look strange?
"John's daughter's boyfriend's car's windscreen is dirty"

Josh Norther

Usenet · Accepted Answer

[nq:1]What is the maximum number of times can one use possessive[/nq]
Sorry - should be "...one can use..."

Josh Norther

Usenet · Answer

[nq:1]What is the maximum number of times can one use possessive ('s) in one sentence before it looks clumsy? At what point should 'of' be used instead of "'s"? For example, does the following sentence look strange? "John's daughter's boyfriend's car's windscreen is dirty"[/nq]
So John's daughter's boyfriend's car's windscreen's dirt's cleansing is overdue, then?

Cheers, Harvey
Ottawa/Toronto/Edmonton for 30 years;
Southern England for the past 22 years.
(for e-mail, change harvey.news to harvey.van)

Usenet · Answer

[nq:1]What is the maximum number of times can one use possessive ('s) in one sentence before it looks clumsy? At what point should 'of' be used instead of "'s"? For example, does the following sentence look strange? "John's daughter's boyfriend's car's windscreen is dirty"[/nq]
Yes and no. Depends on context. If that's how you would normally say it, then write it that way. (Personally, I would say "car windscreen".) Having said this, if writing for a formal context, it's probably best to rewrite a potentially opaque or confusing sentence.
Adrian

Usenet · Answer

[nq:1]What is the maximum number of times can one use possessive ('s) in one sentence before it looks clumsy? At what point should 'of' be used instead of "'s"? For example, does the following sentence look strange? "John's daughter's boyfriend's car's windscreen is dirty"[/nq]
Yes the sentence looks strange, if not incomprehensibly so but this has nothing to do with rules as of grammar. English also seeks euphony (harmed by too many S
sounds) and clarity (harmed by long strings of nouns.) We can usually rewrite appropriately, e.g.
"The car with the dirty windscreen belonged to John's daughter's boy friend"
but few of us think fast enough to solve problems
like this skilfully in everyday speech.
But no rules solve such problems automatically.

Don Phillipson
Carlsbad Springs
(Ottawa, Canada)

Usenet · Answer

[nq:1]What is the maximum number of times can one use possessive ('s) in one sentence before it looks clumsy? At what point should 'of' be used instead of "'s"? For example, does the following sentence look strange? "John's daughter's boyfriend's car's windscreen is dirty"[/nq]
John's daughter's boyfriend's car's windshield's wiper blades need replacing. ;-)>
I seem to recall somewhere that the absolute number is related to the work spoken about in the article by Miller;
'The Magical Number Seven, plus or minus two: Some Limits on Our Capacity for Processing Information' at
http://www.well.com/user/smalin/miller.html
but, I didn't see any mention of it in the article itself. I believe that another linguist whose name I can't recall wrote about it and referenced Miller's paper.

David Wright
http://home.alltel.net/dwrighsr/index.html
To e-mail me, remove 't' from dwrightsr

Usenet · Answer

[nq:1]On 10 Feb 2005, Josh Norther wrote[/nq]
[nq:2]What is the maximum number of times can one use ... sentence look strange? "John's daughter's boyfriend's car's windscreen is dirty"[/nq]
[nq:1]So John's daughter's boyfriend's car's windscreen's dirt's cleansing is overdue, then?[/nq]
I think Harvey's answer to Josh's question about English's grammatical rules regarding a writer's or speaker's obligation to reduce the possessive esses in the sentence about John's daughter's boyfriend's car's windscreen's dirt's cleansing being overdue indirectly reveals Harvey's position on the matter's importance.
Mike

Usenet · Answer

[nq:2]On 10 Feb 2005, Josh Norther wrote So John's daughter's boyfriend's car's windscreen's dirt's cleansing is overdue, then?[/nq]
[nq:1]I think Harvey's answer to Josh's question about English's grammatical rules regarding a writer's or speaker's obligation to reduce the possessive esses in the sentence about John's daughter's boyfriend's car's windscreen's dirt's cleansing being overdue indirectly reveals Harvey's position on the matter's importance.[/nq]
Your thought's accuracy's unimpeachable. (Yeah, I know: that's only one possessive...)

Cheers, Harvey
Ottawa/Toronto/Edmonton for 30 years;
Southern England for the past 22 years.
(for e-mail, change harvey.news to harvey.van)

Usenet · Answer

[nq:2]What is the maximum number of times can one use ... sentence look strange? "John's daughter's boyfriend's car's windscreen is dirty"[/nq]
[nq:1]John's daughter's boyfriend's car's windshield's wiper blades need replacing. ;-)> I seem to recall somewhere that the absolute number is ... the article itself. I believe that another linguist whose name I can't recall wrote about it and referenced Miller's paper.[/nq]
Swift solved the problem handily:-
Big fleas have smaller fleas upon their backs to bite 'em, .. and so ad infinitem.
Or summat like that.

Usenet · Answer

[nq:1]On 10 Feb 2005, Josh Norther wrote[/nq]
[nq:2]What is the maximum number of times can one use ... sentence look strange? "John's daughter's boyfriend's car's windscreen is dirty"[/nq]
[nq:1]So John's daughter's boyfriend's car's windscreen's dirt's cleansing is overdue, then?[/nq]
YFTC "cleansing's".

Usenet · Answer

[nq:2]What is the maximum number of times can one use ... sentence look strange? "John's daughter's boyfriend's car's windscreen is dirty"[/nq]
[nq:1]John's daughter's boyfriend's car's windshield's wiper blades need replacing. ;-)> I seem to recall somewhere that the absolute number is ... article by Miller; 'The Magical Number Seven, plus or minus two: Some Limits on Our Capacity for Processing Information' at[/nq]
It seems to depend on the structure of the sentence. Tail embeddings are easy to follow:
This is the farmer sowing his corn, that kept the *** that crowed in the morn, that waked the priest all shaven and shorn, that married the man all tattered and torn, that kissed the maiden all forlorn, that milked the cow with the crumpled horn, that tossed the dog, that worried the cat, that killed the rat, that ate the malt that lay in the house that Jack built.
Center embeddings, on the other hand, rapidly become meaningless:

The malt the rat the cat the dog the cow the maiden the man the priest the *** the farmer kept waked married kissed milked tossed worried killed ate lay in the house that Jack built.

The malt the rat the cat the dog the cow the maiden the man the priest the *** waked married kissed milked tossed worried killed ate lay ...
The malt the rat the cat the dog the cow the maiden the man the priest married kissed milked tossed worried killed ate lay ...

The malt the rat the cat the dog the cow the maiden the man kissed milked tossed worried killed ate lay ...
The malt the rat the cat the dog the cow the maiden milked tossed worried killed ate lay ...
The malt the rat the cat the dog the cow tossed worried killed ate lay ...
The malt the rat the cat the dog worried killed ate lay ...

** The malt the rat the cat killed ate lay ...
* The malt the rat ate lay ...
The malt lay ...
I can do the double-starred one when speaking, where you can control stress and accent, but I wouldn't go beyond the single-starred one in print.
I see that there's a version at
http://www.crossmyt.com/hc/linghebr/daedljak.html
which tells the story in more poetic language, eg
Here walks forlorn the Damsel crowned with rue,
Lactiferous spoils from vaccine dugs, who drew,
Of that corniculate beast whose tortuous horn
Tossed to the clouds, in fierce vindictive scorn,
The harrowing hound, whose braggart bark and stir
Arched the lithe spine and reared the indignant fur Of Puss, that with verminicidal claw
Struck the weird rat in whose insatiate maw
Lay reeking malt that erst in Juan's courts we saw.

Evan Kirshenbaum + HP Laboratories >"Revolution" has many definitions.
1501 Page Mill Road, 1U, MS 1141 >From the looks of this, I'd sayPalo Alto, CA 94304 >"going around in circles" comes

http://www.kirshenbaum.net/

How many ['s] in one sentence?

Top answer

Get the Weekly English Kit 📬

Related Questions