{"id":97,"date":"2008-01-02T12:00:02","date_gmt":"2008-01-02T18:00:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.kirkmahoney.com\/blog\/2008\/01\/wordpress-red-womens-t-shirt\/"},"modified":"2009-01-17T10:09:42","modified_gmt":"2009-01-17T16:09:42","slug":"wordpress-red-womens-t-shirt","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.kirkmahoney.com\/wordpress\/blog\/2008\/01\/wordpress-red-womens-t-shirt\/","title":{"rendered":"&#8220;WordPress Red Womens T-Shirt&#8221;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I saw this at <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/shop.wordpress.net\/usa\/t-shirts\">shop.wordpress.net\/usa\/t-shirts<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Problems:<\/strong><br \/>\n<strong>1.<\/strong> An apostrophe is missing.<br \/>\n<strong>2.<\/strong> The modifiers of &#8220;T-Shirt&#8221; are in a confusing order.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Explanations:<\/strong><br \/>\n<strong>1.<\/strong> The first problem is that the plural noun &#8220;Women&#8221; requires a possessive apostrophe followed by an &#8220;s&#8221; to indicate the possession of the &#8220;T-Shirt&#8221; by the women.<\/p>\n<p>I believe that the absence of a required possessive apostrophe can be attributable to:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>A typographical error;<\/li>\n<li>Ignorance about possessive apostrophes.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Given how often I see &#8220;Mens&#8221; and &#8220;Womens&#8221; (instead of &#8220;Men&#8217;s&#8221; and &#8220;Women&#8217;s&#8221;) in department stores, I doubt that &#8220;A typographical error&#8221; applies to this situation.<\/p>\n<p>That leaves us with &#8220;Ignorance about possessive apostrophes&#8221;. I believe that this ignorance is consistent with my &#8220;Devolution toward Simpler&#8221; hypothesis. It&#8217;s simpler to write possessive words without apostrophes than to write them with apostrophes.<\/p>\n<p>I blogged about possessive apostrophes yesterday (&#8220;NEW YEARS EVE WITH CARSON DALY&#8221;), too. Maybe something is in the water for the holidays.<\/p>\n<p><strong>2.<\/strong> The second problem is that the modifiers of &#8220;T-Shirt&#8221; are in a confusing order. I doubt that the writer meant to refer to &#8220;Red Women&#8221;, but one could easily infer this from the current order of the modifiers. This is analogous to &#8220;Green Lady&#8217;s Handbag&#8221; (when what is meant is &#8220;Lady&#8217;s Green Handbag&#8221;).<\/p>\n<p>The solution to this confusion is to start from scratch. We have a <em>T-shirt<\/em>. Most important, it comes from <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/wordpress.org\/\">WordPress<\/a>, so it&#8217;s a <em>WordPress T-shirt<\/em> (with the noun &#8220;WordPress&#8221; acting as an adjective to modify the noun &#8220;T-shirt&#8221;). It comes in red, so it&#8217;s a <em>red WordPress T-shirt<\/em> (with the adjective &#8220;red&#8221; modifying the noun phrase &#8220;WordPress T-shirt&#8221;). It&#8217;s for women, so we put the possessive &#8220;women&#8217;s&#8221; in front of <em>red WordPress T-shirt<\/em> to get the solution.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Solution:<\/strong><br \/>\n&#8220;Women&#8217;s Red WordPress T-Shirt&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I saw this at shop.wordpress.net\/usa\/t-shirts. Problems: 1. An apostrophe is missing. 2. The modifiers of &#8220;T-Shirt&#8221; are in a confusing order. Explanations: 1. The first problem is that the plural noun &#8220;Women&#8221; requires a possessive apostrophe followed by an &#8220;s&#8221; to indicate the possession of the &#8220;T-Shirt&#8221; by the women. I believe that the absence&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,10,3,19,15,23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-97","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-adjectives","category-apostrophes","category-common-english-blunders","category-devolution-toward-simpler","category-nouns","category-possessives"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.2 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>&quot;WordPress Red Womens T-Shirt&quot; - Kirk Mahoney . com<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.kirkmahoney.com\/wordpress\/blog\/2008\/01\/wordpress-red-womens-t-shirt\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"&quot;WordPress Red Womens T-Shirt&quot; - Kirk Mahoney . com\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"I saw this at shop.wordpress.net\/usa\/t-shirts. Problems: 1. An apostrophe is missing. 2. The modifiers of &#8220;T-Shirt&#8221; are in a confusing order. Explanations: 1. The first problem is that the plural noun &#8220;Women&#8221; requires a possessive apostrophe followed by an &#8220;s&#8221; to indicate the possession of the &#8220;T-Shirt&#8221; by the women. I believe that the absence&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.kirkmahoney.com\/wordpress\/blog\/2008\/01\/wordpress-red-womens-t-shirt\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Kirk Mahoney . com\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2008-01-02T18:00:02+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2009-01-17T16:09:42+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Kirk\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Kirk\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"1 minute\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.kirkmahoney.com\/wordpress\/blog\/2008\/01\/wordpress-red-womens-t-shirt\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.kirkmahoney.com\/wordpress\/blog\/2008\/01\/wordpress-red-womens-t-shirt\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Kirk\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.kirkmahoney.com\/wordpress\/#\/schema\/person\/ef2d2a9df1a7b457aacaa1b36d0ffe3a\"},\"headline\":\"&#8220;WordPress Red Womens T-Shirt&#8221;\",\"datePublished\":\"2008-01-02T18:00:02+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2009-01-17T16:09:42+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.kirkmahoney.com\/wordpress\/blog\/2008\/01\/wordpress-red-womens-t-shirt\/\"},\"wordCount\":294,\"articleSection\":[\"Adjectives\",\"Apostrophes\",\"Common English Blunders\",\"Devolution toward Simpler\",\"Nouns\",\"Possessives\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.kirkmahoney.com\/wordpress\/blog\/2008\/01\/wordpress-red-womens-t-shirt\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.kirkmahoney.com\/wordpress\/blog\/2008\/01\/wordpress-red-womens-t-shirt\/\",\"name\":\"\\\"WordPress Red Womens T-Shirt\\\" - Kirk Mahoney . com\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.kirkmahoney.com\/wordpress\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2008-01-02T18:00:02+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2009-01-17T16:09:42+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.kirkmahoney.com\/wordpress\/#\/schema\/person\/ef2d2a9df1a7b457aacaa1b36d0ffe3a\"},\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.kirkmahoney.com\/wordpress\/blog\/2008\/01\/wordpress-red-womens-t-shirt\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.kirkmahoney.com\/wordpress\/blog\/2008\/01\/wordpress-red-womens-t-shirt\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.kirkmahoney.com\/wordpress\/blog\/2008\/01\/wordpress-red-womens-t-shirt\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.kirkmahoney.com\/wordpress\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"&#8220;WordPress Red Womens T-Shirt&#8221;\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.kirkmahoney.com\/wordpress\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.kirkmahoney.com\/wordpress\/\",\"name\":\"Kirk Mahoney . com\",\"description\":\"Better Communication for Smart People\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.kirkmahoney.com\/wordpress\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":{\"@type\":\"PropertyValueSpecification\",\"valueRequired\":true,\"valueName\":\"search_term_string\"}}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.kirkmahoney.com\/wordpress\/#\/schema\/person\/ef2d2a9df1a7b457aacaa1b36d0ffe3a\",\"name\":\"Kirk\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/9a8752dc5ed4333a83c8044afd0530fb70bcf58c955e7b5cbadbbd7b4c82c7cd?s=96&r=g\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/9a8752dc5ed4333a83c8044afd0530fb70bcf58c955e7b5cbadbbd7b4c82c7cd?s=96&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/9a8752dc5ed4333a83c8044afd0530fb70bcf58c955e7b5cbadbbd7b4c82c7cd?s=96&r=g\",\"caption\":\"Kirk\"},\"sameAs\":[\"http:\/\/\"],\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.kirkmahoney.com\/wordpress\/blog\/author\/Kirk\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"\"WordPress Red Womens T-Shirt\" - Kirk Mahoney . com","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.kirkmahoney.com\/wordpress\/blog\/2008\/01\/wordpress-red-womens-t-shirt\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"\"WordPress Red Womens T-Shirt\" - Kirk Mahoney . com","og_description":"I saw this at shop.wordpress.net\/usa\/t-shirts. Problems: 1. An apostrophe is missing. 2. The modifiers of &#8220;T-Shirt&#8221; are in a confusing order. Explanations: 1. The first problem is that the plural noun &#8220;Women&#8221; requires a possessive apostrophe followed by an &#8220;s&#8221; to indicate the possession of the &#8220;T-Shirt&#8221; by the women. I believe that the absence&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.kirkmahoney.com\/wordpress\/blog\/2008\/01\/wordpress-red-womens-t-shirt\/","og_site_name":"Kirk Mahoney . com","article_published_time":"2008-01-02T18:00:02+00:00","article_modified_time":"2009-01-17T16:09:42+00:00","author":"Kirk","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Kirk","Est. reading time":"1 minute"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Article","@id":"https:\/\/www.kirkmahoney.com\/wordpress\/blog\/2008\/01\/wordpress-red-womens-t-shirt\/#article","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.kirkmahoney.com\/wordpress\/blog\/2008\/01\/wordpress-red-womens-t-shirt\/"},"author":{"name":"Kirk","@id":"https:\/\/www.kirkmahoney.com\/wordpress\/#\/schema\/person\/ef2d2a9df1a7b457aacaa1b36d0ffe3a"},"headline":"&#8220;WordPress Red Womens T-Shirt&#8221;","datePublished":"2008-01-02T18:00:02+00:00","dateModified":"2009-01-17T16:09:42+00:00","mainEntityOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.kirkmahoney.com\/wordpress\/blog\/2008\/01\/wordpress-red-womens-t-shirt\/"},"wordCount":294,"articleSection":["Adjectives","Apostrophes","Common English Blunders","Devolution toward Simpler","Nouns","Possessives"],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.kirkmahoney.com\/wordpress\/blog\/2008\/01\/wordpress-red-womens-t-shirt\/","url":"https:\/\/www.kirkmahoney.com\/wordpress\/blog\/2008\/01\/wordpress-red-womens-t-shirt\/","name":"\"WordPress Red Womens T-Shirt\" - Kirk Mahoney . com","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.kirkmahoney.com\/wordpress\/#website"},"datePublished":"2008-01-02T18:00:02+00:00","dateModified":"2009-01-17T16:09:42+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.kirkmahoney.com\/wordpress\/#\/schema\/person\/ef2d2a9df1a7b457aacaa1b36d0ffe3a"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.kirkmahoney.com\/wordpress\/blog\/2008\/01\/wordpress-red-womens-t-shirt\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.kirkmahoney.com\/wordpress\/blog\/2008\/01\/wordpress-red-womens-t-shirt\/"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.kirkmahoney.com\/wordpress\/blog\/2008\/01\/wordpress-red-womens-t-shirt\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.kirkmahoney.com\/wordpress\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"&#8220;WordPress Red Womens T-Shirt&#8221;"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.kirkmahoney.com\/wordpress\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.kirkmahoney.com\/wordpress\/","name":"Kirk Mahoney . com","description":"Better Communication for Smart People","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.kirkmahoney.com\/wordpress\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.kirkmahoney.com\/wordpress\/#\/schema\/person\/ef2d2a9df1a7b457aacaa1b36d0ffe3a","name":"Kirk","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/9a8752dc5ed4333a83c8044afd0530fb70bcf58c955e7b5cbadbbd7b4c82c7cd?s=96&r=g","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/9a8752dc5ed4333a83c8044afd0530fb70bcf58c955e7b5cbadbbd7b4c82c7cd?s=96&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/9a8752dc5ed4333a83c8044afd0530fb70bcf58c955e7b5cbadbbd7b4c82c7cd?s=96&r=g","caption":"Kirk"},"sameAs":["http:\/\/"],"url":"https:\/\/www.kirkmahoney.com\/wordpress\/blog\/author\/Kirk\/"}]}},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7gYTW-1z","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kirkmahoney.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kirkmahoney.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kirkmahoney.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kirkmahoney.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kirkmahoney.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=97"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.kirkmahoney.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kirkmahoney.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=97"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kirkmahoney.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=97"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kirkmahoney.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=97"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}