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pleiades's avatar

English Help: I think I need help describing possessive nouns?

Asked by pleiades (6617points) June 18th, 2014

I have a poetry blog called, “Black Swan’s Song”

I’m trying to simply describe a song by one black swan.

Does my title seem fit for my description? Or is the apostrophe not needed?

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6 Answers

gailcalled's avatar

The apostrophe is there to indicate possession. It is required.

Pleiades’ son = the son of Pleiades.

Black swan’s song = the song of the black swan.

Black swan’s songs = the songs of the black swan (his whole repertoire)

Black swans’ songs = the songs of several or many black swans.

Jacob’s ladder = the ladder of Jacob.

Hell’s Angel = one of them
Hell’s Angel = two or more

gailcalled's avatar

edit: Sorry. I meant “Hell’s Angels” to indicate two or more of them.

CWOTUS's avatar

Hell’s Angel’s song = the song of one member of the group
Hell’s Angels’ songs = songs of the group of bikers, if there are such
Hell’s Angels’ song’s tune = the tune of one song of… you know
Hell’s Angles’ songs’ tunes = the tunes of the songs of the… and so on

dxs's avatar

Your description is correct: “Black Swan’s Song”.

cazzie's avatar

it is correct. had the swans been plural possessive, you would say ‘The swans’ Song’

longgone's avatar

Simple rule so you won’t need to ask next time:

You always need an apostrophe and you always need exactly one ‘s’*.

If there is already an ‘s’, so as not to split up the word, simply add the apostrophe behind the last letter.

Swan sings
-> Swan ‘s song

Swans sing
-> Swan s’ song

* “Its” is a common exception. This is because “it’s” already has a different definition (“it is”). Very poorly planned ;)

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