one week's time or one weeks time?

Brendan Burgess

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Should an apostrphe be used for this expression. Is it a possessive?

One week's time looks o.k., but two years' time doesn't look right.

Brendan
 
Yes, it should. And both of the subsequent expressions are correct.

I think it's confused by the fact that people will often talk about having/taking "two weeks holidays" (in the sense of two weeks of holidays)...

But "a week's pay" or "two weeks' pay/time/work", etc., is definitely a possessive.
 
I agree with the above poster, but I would add that you probably don't need the word "time" at all. If "two years' time" looks wrong to you, just write "two years". (Obviously this won't work if you're talking about "two years' pay" though!)
 
Hi Brendan

I would instinctively have used in two years' time

I did a quick check for a definitive answer and found this site:

1. Apostrophes are used in time expressions such as "3 years' insurance" (also called "temporal expressions"). In a temporal expression, the apostrophe is positioned before the "s" for single units of time and after for multiple units of time.

[broken link removed]

Marion
 
"Should an apostrphe be used for this expression."

No, a question mark should be used in this case. Then the sentence would look like this - "Should an apostrphe be used for this expression ?" I would probably spell it 'apostrophe' also.
 
My opinion..... It might also depend on the formality of the communication. For a brief email, it might look pedantic (definitely too pedantic in an sms/text message). However, for more formal publications such as a book or an academic journal article, every comma and apostrophe would need to be abolutely correct.
 
Just to confuse things, in the interests of clarity/readability, it is often suggested that when denoting plurals, apostrophes should be used for things like:

CD's as opposed to CDs

...advice which I for one, ignore BTW.
 
Caveat said:
Just to confuse things, in the interests of clarity/readability, it is often suggested that when denoting plurals, apostrophes should be used for things like:

CD's as opposed to CDs
Click to expand...

I think it's pretty widely agreed in style manuals that an apostrophe should not be used in such cases.

...advice which I for one, ignore BTW.
Click to expand...
I would have put that comma after "ignore". And used "that" instead of "which"
 
Bob_tg said:
It might also depend on the formality of the communication. For a brief email, it might look pedantic (definitely too pedantic in an sms/text message).
Click to expand...
Why would it 'look pedantic' to use an apostrophe correctly?
 
 
Caveat, notice my clever use of the construction "I would have..." rather than "you should have..."
 
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