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#91888 01/14/03 06:16 PM
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I'm with johnjohn and Bean, too.


#91889 01/14/03 09:34 PM
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Well RhubC, since you're standing alone in a sea of apostrophes, I shall sink with you - I too read it as you did, that no such appendage was needed. Being semi-literate(on a good day) I refrained from saying so, but when someone else voiced my opinion, I decided I could fall on my sword with that one, even while being swept away by the tide of contrary views.


#91890 01/15/03 04:52 PM
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johnjohn, how wonderful to see you back here! <grin> I've missed you!

I have no idea of what this movie is about, but I could go with Faldage's Rx, if Anna's hyphen is added: I could approve saying, "It was a two-week notice."

However, movie titles generally don't have any context, and so in this case I think we have to go with the obvious interpretation. Therefore, it should have the apostrophe, because the whole phrase (anybody recall the 'at high tide' addition onto our 'happy as a clam' discussion?) is: two weeks' worth of notice.


#91891 01/15/03 05:06 PM
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two weeks' worth of notice

Huh?

What does that mean?

Is it twice as valuable as one week's worth of notice?




#91892 01/15/03 05:09 PM
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It's worth another weeks money!

Ed: or possibly another weeks' money, or another week's money??!! [baffled-e]


#91893 01/15/03 05:15 PM
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Is it twice as valuable as one week's worth of notice?
That would depend on one's boss, I suppose. My point was that two weeks' notice is a shortening of two weeks' worth of notice. One week's worth, being singular, takes the single-placement apostrophe. Two, three, or ten weeks would take the plural placement. Perhaps my word 'phrase' was improper; possibly, 'meaning' would have been better:
two weeks' notice means two weeks' worth of notice. Am I starting to be clear, yet?



#91894 01/15/03 05:29 PM
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Have you ever heard it as "two weeks' worth of notice"? Or does this qualify as what you'll find in etymologies from time to time when they have merely postulated the existence of a form, "unattested"?




#91895 01/15/03 06:43 PM
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I bet (as I said before) the original phrase is "a notice of two weeks" (not "two weeks' worth of notice"). It should be easy to check the labour laws of any province or state, looking for this phrase or maybe not this phrase but it should give a clue. However, I'm on my way home now, so it won't be me doing the looking.


#91896 01/15/03 10:22 PM
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I must admit that when I posted I didn't even consider that the phrase should not take an apostrophe. Guess that's the beauty of this place.

From "The Complete Plain Words" (1973)-
<<<Whether one should use an apostrophe in such expressions as 'Ten years imprisonment' is a disputed and not very important point. [ha!] The answer seems to be that if "ten years" is regarded as a descriptive genitive...we must write "years'" ; if as an adjectival phrase there must be no apostrophe but the word must be hyphened [ - eh? you must mean hyphenated matey...] (see HYPHEN). In the singular "a year's imprisonment) "year's" can only be a descriptive genitive.>>>

Fowler (1996) don't say nuffink on it...any others?

And I still definitely won't see the movie...

jj


#91897 01/19/03 06:06 AM
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>>(A sort of example of pathetic fallacy. I am sick of the spam I've been getting recently about pathetic phallusy, but I won't enlarge on this at the present.)

And, thankfully, you haven't gone on about it at length ...

- Pfranz

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