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Anonymous Posted 13 years ago
Grammar

Use of apostrophes

Hi, I would have one question. May I use the apostrophe and "s" letter to express some property or characteristic even of some (nonliving) things?

i.e. tire´s flat, car´s color, movie´s duration, greenhouse gas´s emission, water´s pollution, wine´s flavor, box´s dimensions etc.
  

Top answer

Anonymous May I use the apostrophe and "s" letter to express some property or characteristic even of some (nonliving) things? It sometimes works. Among yours, these seem reasonable: car's color, movie's duration, wine's flavor, box's dimensions.

— Mister Micawber

  • Anonymous May I use the apostrophe and "s" letter to express some property or characteristic even of some (nonliving) things?
  • It sometimes works.
  • Among yours, these seem reasonable: car's color, movie's duration, wine's flavor, box's dimensions.
  • Of course, it depends very much on context: My car's color is red.
  • The car color I would choose is red.
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3 Answers
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AnonymousMay I use the apostrophe and "s" letter to express some property or characteristic even of some (nonliving) things?
It sometimes works. Among yours, these seem reasonable: car's color, movie's duration, wine's flavor, box's dimensions.
Of course, it depends very much on context:

My car's color is red.
The car color
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I´m asking, because I need to avoid often repeated prepositions "of" in my diploma thesis. For instance: The results of* measurement *of* emissions *of carbon monooxide have shown... and a lot of similar sentences.

It doesn´t sound good, does it? I need to avoid it, somehow.
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It sounds fine. You are too close to it, so it looms large. The possessive with inanimate things often sounds informal, and if you are not a native speaker, it is all to easy to sound ludicrous with it. You can rearrange and condense sometimes, instead. "The results of measurement of emissions of carbon monoxide have shown ...." can become "The results of measurement of carbon monoxide emissions h
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