0
Sb70012 Posted 12 years ago
Grammar

Two hour's delay / two hours delay / two hour delay.

  • I got fired because of my two hour's delay.
  • I got fired because of my two hours delay.
  • I got fired because of my two hour delay.
  • I got fired because of my two hours' delay.
Hello,
I'm confused with the usage of the word 'delay'. Would you please guide me on that?
Which is natural?

Self-made general question.
No source or context
Thank you
  

Top answer

sb70012 Which is natural? "delay" is unnatural in the given context. I got fired because I was two hours late.

— CalifJim

  • sb70012 Which is natural?
  • "delay" is unnatural in the given context.
  • I got fired because I was two hours late.
  • You need a different context to use the word "delay".
  • The traffic was so bad that we experienced a two-hour delay in arriving at the hotel .
Free · every Monday

Get the Weekly English Kit 📬

New words, one handy idiom, and a 2-minute quiz — delivered to your inbox to keep your streak alive.

3 Answers
0
sb70012Which is natural?
"delay" is unnatural in the given context.

I got fired because I was two hours late.

You need a different context to use the word "delay".

The traffic was so bad that we experienced a two-hour delay in arriving at the hotel.

You can use "to be delayed" instead of "a delay".
0
0
Thanks for answering but do you mean:

sorry for my two hours delay. =

> is incorrect?

If it's incorrect, then what's the proper way to say something like that?

But I have a book called [ABC of Common Grammatical Errors by Nigel D Turton]
He has said in it:
an hour's delay > is correct
That's why I'm confused.

Thanks for your time.

0
0
sb70012Sorry for my two hours delay.
Hmm. Now there's a case where "my" doesn't sound so bad. What's wrong here, though, is that it's not "two hours"; it's "two-hour", as I wrote it in my previous post. Either that, or you're trying for the alternate phrasing with "hours' ". See
0

Related Questions