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Subject:Re: Rule about not using possessive? From:Bruce Byfield <bbyfield -at- axionet -dot- com> To:"TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com> Date:Thu, 05 Jul 2001 10:30:08 -0700
Elizabeth Estep wrote:
>
> I questioned a change my editor had made, and now she's questioning herself.
> She swears that at some point she learned that possessives are inappropriate
> in technical writing, but now she can neither remember the logic behind this
> "rule" nor find a source for it.
Just when I thought I'd heard every piece of grammatical folklore
imaginable, you present this one - and at least one other person the
list mentions having heard it, too. Thanks for the addition; I'll file
this rule right alongside the ones about not ending sentences in a
preposition and not starting a sentence with "and."
Hearing an editor refer to this sort of arbitrary rule always unsettles
me. I would expect an editor by definition would know that grammar is as
much a matter of circumstances as of rules. Several other list members
have pointed out situations where limiting the use of the possessive
might be a good idea. But a general prohibition against it? It's hard to
believe that anyone would take such a rule seriously.
--
Bruce Byfield 604.421.7177 bbyfield -at- axionet -dot- com
"You know there ain't no kind of dream without some kind of debt
And I don't wanna go to bed, ain't nothin' happened yet."
- The Mollys, "I Don't Wanna Go to Bed"
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