11.04.2019

Real Time, Or, I'm a Terrible Mothering Example


Thanks to the arrival of a new, sweet-smelling Moses baby at church, Cadence and Skylark are on an extended baby doll kick here at home. I just went into the library to see that they had tucked their babies into bed, covering their faces with blankets, as they are wont to do. I instinctively uncovered the babies's heads to allow for air flow, and Cadence ran over to undo the damage.

"But don't they need to breathe?" I protested.

In her soft, gentle voice, Cadence immediately responded, "No." and promptly recovered their faces.

4 comments :

Abigail said...

p.s.
Any grammar nerds out there who want to comment on the proper possessive form of words ending in a final "s?"

I was taught in high school to omit the final "s" and simply add the possessive apostrophe at the end, but it seems that the rule has fallen out of favor, if it ever was indeed in favor.

Something in me recoils at typing "babies's."
Those teenage years sure are formative.

Please help!

Sincerely,
Grammatically Perplexed

Rebecca said...

That extra 's' tripped me up too! Are grammar rules trendy? For societies' sake, I hope not.

Meli R. said...

Babies's is correct, even if it looks really weird. 'Babies' is a collective noun and therefore the apostrophe rule is like that of single nouns. A good example is children: the children's ball (not the children' ball).
This page is good for clarifying things:http://blog.cambridgecoaching.com/possessive-plurals-and-plurals-possessives
PS - I would have written babies' ball because the double 's' looks wrong. I guess they gave the same teenage grammar lessons in NZ!

Abigail said...

Thanks for the grammatical support! ;)

My first clue that official grammar etiquette was different from what I'd learned in high school occurred recently when I painted a sign for a friend. She wanted me to paint "The Jones's," or whatever I thought was correct. Since I used to be a grammar nerd, I looked up the correct form to find that the plural possessive of Jones is "Joneses's." Even with the extra "s" at the end, "Jones's" would only refer to a single member of the Jones family, but the proper plural possessive form was such a mouthful of "s" that we decided on her original desire, knowing that most people who visit are not going to know the difference! Except, now, for us... ;)