Jeff Corwin Experience

Question

There is a documentary show called "Jeff Corwin Experience", why shouldn't "Jeff Corwin's Experience" be used instead, is it wrong to put an apostrophe s there? Thanks.

Suzi · Accepted Answer

It is probably called "The" Jeff Corwin Experience, when the name is effectively working as an adjective modifying the "experience".  You get this a lot with show titles.

Hitchhiker · Answer

These may help:

Apostrophes, Apostrophes, (Apostrophes and its it's Another question on "it's"

Troy · Answer

Thanks Suzi & hitchhiker. Yeap, you're right, it's called "The Jeff Corwin Experience", so we can make 'name' or 'noun' as adjective?

Examples (these are titles of books, if we are going to rename them to make 'name' or 'noun' as adjective like 'The Jeff Corwin Experience', can we do as follows):

1. The Traveller's Handbook. (can we change it to "The traveller handbook" as well?)

2. Socrates' Way. (A book by Roland Gross. In another way can we write as "The Socrates Way?)

3. Danziger's Travels (A book by Nick Danziger. Can we put it as "The Danziger Travels"?)

Troy

Suzi · Answer

Troy - I love your questions! Soooo demanding.

no 1 - IMHO - definitely NOT - presumably because "traveller" is general rather than a specific individual.

2 + 3 possibly acceptable. I'd be interested what others think. We are going into stylistics I think.

There is something about this construction which sounds a little pompous, as though the person using their name in this way for a show has a slightly inflated ego. Maybe that can be ironic in some show titles and maybe it is serious.

Troy · Answer

Thanks Suzi for your help again.

If "The Traveller's Handbook" cannot be written as "The traveller handbook" because 'traveller' is general, how about "The family party"? 'family' is also a noun which acts as adjective here, or "The paper shop", "The police car"?

Troy

Suzi · Answer

You see what I mean! You are such a demon for examples! I dunno! Maybe we are back in the realms of stylistics rather than patterns which follow predictable rules?

* *** .. working backwards from your original point about apostrophes, your e.g.s are not the same when you re-insert the possessive apostrophe
it is not:
the family's party (although it could be!)
the paper's shop (the most obviously absurd example)
the police's car (although again, it could be)

The mecahnism for deciding when a noun can function as an adjective seems to be the issue here.

The school book might be the school's book;
The grammar book is not the grammar's book;
The Troy phenomenon IS Troy's very own thing!

Troy · Answer

Haa..haaa...shows that how difficult for me to learn English. When I speak in mother tongue, I never think which one is 'noun' or which one is 'adjective', the thing is, I don't really have that kind of environment to get me accustomed to using English, I try to read more, but to learn through reading is somehow different from learning directly through interaction and conversation, because normally reading will put me at the receiving end and thus make the foundation a bit shaky, and questions will start to arise when I want to write something, should I use this or that word, should I phrase it this way or otherwise. To put an analogy, if you stay in Sydney and go surfing at Bondi beach everyday, you know which is the best route for you to get there and you can do it without much thought, but if you have never been there and just study the route through incomplete maps with bits and pieces of information, then you will have many questions when you are required to describe a route to go from Opera House to Bondi beach.

I surfed the net (not at Bondi

) and came out something like this, again, confirmation or correction of it is most welcome:

A general tip for checking that your use of apostrophes is correct is to change the phrase around so that the part before the apostrophe becomes the last word. If it still has the same meaning, the apostrophe was correct.

Examples:
i. The traveller's handbook = The handbook of traveller
ii. Nick's Travels = The travels of Nick
iii. The paper's shop - cannot be 'the shop of paper'

Basically the 'apostrophe s' is to form 'possessive', and the mentioned noun modifier is to describe something without the interest of stressing possession.

So the school book is still the school book, we don't really want to stress the ownership here, and I think for "The Jeff Corwin Experience" he doesn't really want to stress the show is about HIS experience, but instead, HIS KIND of experience.

This far I understand. I appreciate your effort in guiding. Thanks. Suzi.

Suzi · Answer

All I can say is that whatever you think your problems are - you are very fluent and obviously a skilled linguist, perhaps just something of a perfectionist! What is your mother tongue? Do you watch TV and moves is English, as the written word is generally more formal and speech patterns are more relaxed.

btw, yes -that general rule you found looks helpful.

Troy · Answer

Wow...that's too big a compliment, I'm far from being a skilled linguist, and don't aspire to be a perfectionist. Anyway, thanks!
Sometimes I watch English movies and TV programmes, some of them are comparatively easier for me to understand, like 'Matrix'; some use a lot of slangs and I may need to do some guesswork, like '2 Fast 2 Furious'; some speak in local accent, which I find to be more difficult to catch, like 'Billy Elliot'.

Troy

John C. · Answer

My feeling is that the experience being had is of Jeff Corwin by the viewer or listener, so no apostrophe applies.

John.

Jeff Corwin Experience

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