Rule about not using possessive? (Take II)

["Hart, Geoff" <Geoff-H -at- MTL -dot- FERIC -dot- CA>]

Bruce Byfield opines: <<Hearing an editor refer to this sort of arbitrary
rule always unsettles me.>>

Editors are people too, and make mistakes. We also learn things that "aren't
necessarily so"--as I, among others, have occasionally proven on this list
and elsewhere. The editor in the original query was wise enough to doubt
what she'd been taught, and ask for advice, which should please rather than
unsettle you.

<<I would expect an editor by definition would know that grammar is as much
a matter of circumstances as of rules.>>

No more than you can say "a technical writer by definition"; editors come
from a variety of backgrounds, like writers, and have as wide a range of
training and competence. Speaking as an editor, I think you've mis-stated
something here. (Unless you're saying that editors occasionally mistake
style preferences for grammatical rules, in which case we agree that this is
wrong.) Grammar is indeed a matter of rules, and the rules can be found in
any of several currently available books; it's _style_ that's a matter of
circumstances. Not knowing the difference can make someone a bad editor when
they blindly apply what they consider to be rules, without understanding the
difference between grammar and style.

--Geoff Hart, FERIC, Pointe-Claire, Quebec
geoff-h -at- mtl -dot- feric -dot- ca
"User's advocate" online monthly at
www.raycomm.com/techwhirl/usersadvocate.html

"The problem with defending the purity of the English language is that
English is about as pure as a cribhouse whore. We don't just borrow words;
on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat them
unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary."-- James D. Nicoll

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