Come on braniacs, help me out

[Monkeytrousers]

If I wanted to talk abotu Mr and Mrs Rose's books, would I call them the Rose's books or the Roses' books?

Please explain the difference too - briefly

bump

please??

If it is Mr & Mrs Rose then it the Mrs & Mrs Rose's books

If it was Mrs & Mrs Roses then it would be Roses'

If you were referring to them as The Roses, it would be The Roses' books

1. • two individuals owning the items
2. • one plural unit (the Rose family) owning the item

I think!

to work out where an apostrophe goes turn it round into longhand: rather than the dog's bone, say The Bone Of The Dog. so the apostrophe goes after whatever the owning thing is. the dinner of the girls > the girls' dinner; the car of the man > the man's car. etc

with your roses, it can go two ways. The books of Mr & Mrs Rose > Mr & Mrs Rose's books (tecnically mr&mrsrose are one thing). The books of the Roses > the Roses' books.

and there is no ' for the Roses because they are a plural (two Roses).

hope this helps!

Slightly context-dependent.

If I were talking about Tales from Shakespeare, I'd say "the Lambs' book" because there were two of them and they co-wrote the book, so it obviously belongs to them plurally; but if I were talking about a family's book collection I think I would dodge the issue (because "the Roses" to indicate the family group is a bit informal & I am not sure it is quite echt written) and say "the Rose family's books"

kniow about saxon genitive but not about what to do when referring to them as the 'Roses' as in "the Roses' books reviews." Cheers!

They are two writers btw who write together.

missingtheaction. That's exactly how I do it and I seem to always get it right, while my English colleages, DP, etc... don't it's so simpy really. If you can change it into 'the ... of...' then it's posessive and the ' is needed. If the word it's refering to ends in 's', then the ' goes after the s.
Hmm, it seems simple when I do it, but this explanation must seem really confusing to you. I'm not good at explaining things really.

oh, missing the action, that's good

Monkeytrousers... As Bink said, if they write together, I'd say "the Roses' book reviews" or maybe "the book reviews by Fred and Jane Rose"...

Agree with bink and ellbell, in this context (joint enterprise as opposed to two authors writing separately) it has to be the Roses' books

Can I hijack & offer a lovely poser my godmother had to deal with once ... deciding the wording for a blue plaque for a building to commemorate two famous inhabitants - a married couple who were each independently well-known under unrelated-sounding names.

"Augustus Snood and Gertrude Poplingham each lived and wrote here 1910 - 1925. [PS Er, they were married you know, people knew them as the Snouts. Sorry we thought we ought to get that in but we got a bit stuck as to how.]"

(It's an unresolved poser by the way, so if anyone's having a dull Tuesday afternoon, Have A Go.)

Not the Snoods then? What an annoyingly principled pair.

But why does she get to be "his wife"? Why doesn't he get to be listed as "her husband"? Isn't that implied priority the stamp of the patriarchy? (Etc etc)

(Yes I know the mealy word spouse is surfacing in your minds ... Also, you have to get "aka the Snoods" in.)

No, I mean the Snouts.

as in "aka the Snouts"

'The home of Mr & Mrs Snout (better known as writers Augustus Snood and Gertrude Poplingham) 1910-1925'

you could put Gertie first if you are really worried about endorsing the patriarchy

I am getting a Beatrice and Sidney Webb vibe from this couple

Zazette has it I think

yep I like Zazette's too
are you new Zazette? Not spotted your name before

Go for alphabetical order, which has the happy consequence of 'promoting' Gertie.

Hence: Gertrude Poplingham and Augustus Snood ('the Snouts') lived and wrote here...

Putting 'the Snouts' in inverted commas makes it clear (OK... maybe not, clear-ish perhaps) that this is an aka situation.

It is surely irrelevant that they were married. If we're going to subvert the patriarchy, I reckon we go the whole hog and do away with marriage too!

oh but there's no explicit sexual innuendo in that!