passessive s

Question

Hi,I have some confusions regarding the use of "passessive s". When do we have to use it?For example, we use it in the following case:Student's namebut we say:Computer name.Is there any general rule here?Best wishes

BarbaraPA · Accepted Answer

If, for some reason, I called my computer George, then my computer's name would be George. By "computer name," I think you mean the nickname or handle that people use while online - so it's not possessed by the computer, but the person. Sam's computer name is "Football Fan 123," for example.

The only real confusion that you should have about the possessive s is when it's used with words that end in an "s-like" sound, like "Gladys." People don't like to write "Gladys's son," but that's still correct.

If you have other examples of things that seem to violate the possessive s rule, we can try to help.

Paco2004 · Answer

AnonymousI have some confusions regarding the use of "passessive s". When do we have to use it?
For example, we use it in the following case:
Student's name
but we say:
Computer name.
Is there any general rule here?

A computer name is defined as a name given to a computer to be identified on a particular network. You can understand "computer name" is a kind of common noun, i.e., "computer-name". So you can say like "My computer's computer name is PA-CO-2004", but casually people would say like "My computer's name is PA-CO-2004".

To my guess, what you want to know is not like this kind of simple stuff. Maybe you want to know in what case we have to use a possessive form of a noun as an attributive modifier to a head-noun and in what case we have to use a plain noun as an attributive modifier to a head-noun. This is a question quite tough to answer. People say "Ms Rice is a member of the Bush administration" more often than "Ms. Rice is a member of Bush's administration". But they say "Mrs. Laura Bush, the President's wife, visited Japan", not "Mrs. Laura Bush, the president wife, visited Japan". I myself did not well understand on what grounds people differentiate these usages. But I interpret "the Bush administration" as the administration which is headed or controlled by the president George Bush. That is, George Bush possessed the administration personally, but he just heads the administration. On the other hand, a wife is a person possessed by her husband personally (and a husband is a person possessed by his wife). I think, people seem to say "X's Y" when they feel the ownership of X over Y is comparatively strong, and they tend to say "the X Y" or "a X Y" when the ownership of X over Y is comparatively weak.

This is merely my personal opinion, and you should wait better and more detailed explanations from native speakers.

paco

passessive s

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