The Lemon Fool

I'm normally pretty reasonable at working out apostrophes but i am struggliing with this one...

If I wanted to say "an early album by The Christians",

would that alternatively be

"an early Christians' album"
or
an early Christians album"

?

brain is fazed...

didds

The latter I think
cf
The Animals' first album
An early Animals album

didds wrote:If I wanted to say "an early album by The Christians",

would that alternatively be

"an early Christians' album"
or
an early Christians album"

?

Eh? You know what you want to say - it's "an early album by The Christians". Why not just say it and avoid the issue?

Gengulphus

didds wrote:I'm normally pretty reasonable at working out apostrophes but i am struggliing with this one...

If I wanted to say "an early album by The Christians",

would that alternatively be

"an early Christians' album"
or
an early Christians album"

?

brain is fazed...

didds

I think it should be 'an early Christians album' unless the album in question belongs to the Christians in which case it would be an early Christians' album.

RC

It's possessive. The album is of the cod-botherers. So it wants that apostrophe.

Unless someone can convince me otherwise?

UncleEbenezer wrote:It's possessive. The album is of the cod-botherers. So it wants that apostrophe.

Unless someone can convince me otherwise?

You could be right but I would have thought that given that the album is not owned by the Christians the word is just an adjective and does not imply possession.

RC

It's possessive. The album is of the cod-botherers. So it wants that apostrophe.

Had the album been from another source, would it still need an apostrophe?

For example, surely we would say “An early Bonio album”?

In which case The Christians (not an expert but I assume it is a plural because there is a bunch of them) would be treated similarly.

Whatever happened to Neil Christian and the Crusaders?
They had a good guitarist for a while, some young skinny chap from Heston

madhatter wrote:... The Christians (not an expert but I assume it is a plural because there is a bunch of them) ...

Well, I'd say "The bunch of grapes is hanging on the vine." rather than "The bunch of grapes are hanging on the vine." - I think the rule is that a term that refers to a group of things as a unit is singular, even though the things are plural.

It gets a bit confusing when the words saying that it's a group are elided, as happens when one says "The Christians" as shorthand for "the group named The Christians", but I don't think that alters the fact that the term is singular. Precisely the same phrase can be clearly plural in other contexts, such as "The Christians in Rome were persecuted in the second century AD.", and there is also the shorthand of using "Christian" as shorthand for "an individual member of the group named The Christians". So one might for instance say "The Christians are not all Christians", with the first use of the word being the plural of that shorthand and the second being the plural of the description of a person of a particular group of religious persuasions (or indeed the plural of the shorthand for people whose family name is "Christian", which according to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Christians_(band) is the actual origin of the group's name).

Gengulphus

This is all excellent stuff for the Pedants' Place. I'm most impressed. And its extremely encouraging that many of our number are attempting to determine the correct usage. Keep it up - I feel this one has yet a long way to run.
To summarise:- if Christians is singular, and possessive, then it is Christians's; if it is plural and possessive then it is Christians'; If it is not possessive, then it is Christians. I await with bated breath for the solution to this knotty problem

Gengulphus wrote:... which according to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Christians_(band) is the actual origin of the group's name).

I see that I made a mistake in that, so here it is with the mistake corrected:

... which according to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Christians_(band) is the actual origin of the group's name).

Gengulphus

Gengulphus wrote:

Gengulphus wrote:... which according to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Christians_(band) is the actual origin of the group's name).

I see that I made a mistake in that, so here it is with the mistake corrected:

... which according to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Christians_(band) is the actual origin of the group's name).

Gengulphus

Explanation required for the colour blind!

Explanation required for the colour blind!

The first given link lacked the last closing bracket.

Or looked at another way, one link works and the other doesn't!

Gengulphus

Thanks all

I was leaning towards the use of "Christians" as an adjective, rather than being possessive of "album" but thought the query was worthy of debate in this august forum

ta!

didds

(or should that be didds' ...

didds wrote:(or should that be didds' ...

Is there more than one of you? ;-)

Gengulphus