Re: Rule about not using possessive?

[Bonnie Granat <bgranat -at- att -dot- net>]

Elizabeth Estep wrote:
> 
> I questioned a change my editor had made, and now she's questioning herself.
> She swears that at some point she learned that possessives are inappropriate
> in technical writing, but now she can neither remember the logic behind this
> "rule" nor find a source for it.

She's right, according to my own
experience. Two reasons for avoiding
possessives are:

-  In translation situations, they may
be confusing to the translator if they
appear in complicated constructions.
(They can certainly be confusing to me
in some circumstances -- and awkward.)

-  Non-native English speakers often
read English documentation and getting
facility with using possessives
correctly is usually one of the more
advanced topics they study when they
learn English.

-- 
Bonnie Granat
http://home.att.net/~bgranat

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