Monthly information digest for EditPros clients and friends

CONTENTS FEATURE: Does the name of your organization need an apostrophe — or not? GRAMMAR COACH: Fielding your questions FINDER'S FEE: Recommend a friend—and earn up to $500 FEATURE: Does the name of your organization need an apostrophe — or not?      Which is correct: driver license or driver's license? Or should it be drivers' license? Does your office have an employee lounge, an employees lounge or an employees' lounge? What about the use of the word boys in the name of a detention facility? An ongoing dispute among workers at an institution prompted reader Sherry M. to write to us.      "We run a high school for boys who have been convicted of crime(s). The school is located within the juvenile institution at which the boys serve their sentenced time," Sherry wrote. "The institution is called the Raintree County Boys Ranch [not the actual name]. Here is my question: should the word Boys in this instance always be considered plural possessive with an apostrophe at the end? We have factions within our office who believe it should, and those who believe it shouldn't. Please help us settle our discussion."      To answer Sherry's question, we'll need to determine whether the noun boys in the name "Raintree County Boys Ranch" is an attributive or genitive noun. An attributive noun is one that is used to modify another noun. For example, in the phrase "home office," the noun "home" describes the kind of office. Other examples include "car seat," "ham sandwich," "alumni association," "commodities broker," "clothes dryer," "Boy Scout" and "furniture polish."      Attributive nouns usually don't cause any problems unless they appear in plural form, when they can be downright perplexing if any question arises about whether or not they should be in genitive form.      Genitive case is used to establish any of several relationships between nouns, including physical possession (as in Tom's car), classification (the car's speed, a week's notice), origin (the professor's lecture) or purpose (men's clothing store).      Those distinctions must be made when you're trying to determine whether, for example, California issues "driver's licenses" or "drivers licenses." Is your neighbor a "physician's assistant," a "physicians' assistant" or a "physician assistant"?      Start by determining if the modifying noun is supposed to identify ownership or some other relationship, and by deciding if it should be represented in singular or plural form. A license to operate a vehicle is issued to only one person; logic would therefore dictate that it should be expressed in singular form. A license is not an object of possession in the same sense of a car or hat or computer. It's a certificate issued TO someone. It could be expressed as "driver's license" by considering it a genitive of purpose — it's a license FOR a driver. The state of California, however, uses the label "driver license" — making "driver" an attributive noun that describes the KIND of license. Either can be considered correct; the choice of term is a matter of interpretation or preference.      The Medline Medical Dictionary gives preference to "physician's assistant" (which could be considered a genitive of classification or origin), but lists the attributive form "physician assistant" as a variant.      What about the lounge for employees? If your organization has more than one employee, it probably should be identified in plural form. Well, then — is it an "employees lounge" (attributive form) or an "employees' lounge" (genitive of purpose)? Once again, that's a matter of interpretation, with no right or wrong answer.      The Chicago Manual of Style endorses retention of the apostrophe in cases in which the distinction between genitive and attributive forms is difficult to determine. Its recommendations include: • a consumers' group • taxpayers' association • children's rights • the women's team • a boys' club.      So let's get back to the Raintree County Boys Ranch. Is the noun "boys" being used attributively to modify the noun "ranch," to describe a kind of ranch? No, not in this case. The subject is a facility FOR boys — thereby indicating the need for expression as a genitive of purpose. The same is true for the California Men's Colony penal facility. We recommend using plural genitive form (with an apostrophe) to express the name of Sherry's facility: Raintree County Boys' Ranch. GRAMMAR COACH: Fielding your questions 1. George B. wrote:      "Time magazine published a story with this headline: 'The New Internet Start-Up Boom: Get Rich Slow.' That's painful!" The grammar coach replies:      We agree, George, and we know you're not referring to the economy. People who are getting rich slow are probably talking quiet about it. And spending their money careful. And rare making risky decisions. We honest don't know why a publication would shoo adverbs away like that, other than to echo the expression "get rich quick" — which is ungrammatical. The adverbial form "quickly" is required to modify the predicate — to identify the rate at which to become rich.      Thanks for sending that flub example, George. 2. Steve H. wrote:      "President Obama said he should have 'calibrated his words differently' after saying a Cambridge Police Department sergeant acted 'stupidly' in the arrest of Harvard scholar Henry Lewis Gates Jr. 'Calibrated?' Really? Just how does one calibrate a word, or words?" The grammar coach replies:      The verb "calibrate" most commonly means either to check the accuracy of an instrument, or to measure something precisely. Another fairly obscure definition is "to adjust precisely for a particular function." While that definition can conceivably envelop the notion of modifying language to better suit a function, that was an unnecessarily grandiloquent way for the president to say that he should have CHOSEN his words more carefully.      Are you perplexed by some aspect of grammar or word usage? Don't be shy! Ask the "grammar coach" at EditPros and we'll try to help—at no charge, just for the sport of it. FINDER'S FEE: Recommend a friend—and earn a finder's fee of up to $500      Do you know of a friend or colleague whose office can benefit from EditPros' services? If you do, EditPros may reward you with a "finder's fee" of up to $500.      EditPros LLC, established in 1993, performs writing, editing, proofreading and publication management services for newsletters, brochures, Web sites, annual reports, research studies, business proposals, and other informational and marketing materials. Our office is in Davis, Calif., between Sacramento and San Francisco; however, our clients include educational institutions, private corporations, health-care organizations, trade associations, scientific research institutions, Web site developers and government agencies from throughout the United States. We have worked with some of them for more than 10 years.      If you recommend our services to a friend or business colleague, and that introduction leads to an assignment for EditPros, we will award you a "finder's fee" equaling 10 percent of the amount we earn on the first assignment for the new client, up to a maximum finder's fee of $500. Naturally, the finder's fee is applicable only to client organizations for which we have not worked previously.      This offer will remain in effect until further notice. YOUR TURN: Ask the "grammar coach" or subscribe      We invite you to submit your questions to the "grammar coach," and we welcome you to subscribe to this monthly newsletter—which we'll send to your e-mail address at no charge. We respond to all "grammar coach" questions personally, but delays may occur because we must place top priority on assignments from our clients. We appreciate your patience and your interest.      You also can change your e-mail subscription address. 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