Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2014 January 18

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January 18

What is the antonym of cata?

What is the antonym of the prefix cata- ? SpinningSpark 00:57, 18 January 2014 (UTC)

How about ana- [1] 75.41.109.190 (talk) 01:17, 18 January 2014 (UTC)

(edit conflict) In what sense? In its basic, Greek "down" sense, the antonym is ana-, from the Greek prefix meaning "up". That doesn't mean the prefixes have exactly opposite meanings in all uses, though. But it's why we have cathodes and anodes, among other things. Deor (talk) 01:22, 18 January 2014 (UTC)

Sometimes, anastrophe can be a catastrophe, comprehension-wise. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 01:50, 18 January 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for the answers. I never realised that cathode was etymologically related to the cata- prefix. The context concerned catastrophe. I had just discovered that JRR Tolkien thought this word should have an antonym and coined eucatastrophe for that purpose, meaning a sudden unexpected event that makes everything turn out just fine (as opposed to a disaster). I was surprised that the great man could invent such an ugly looking word (but not so surprised that it never caught on). You have now explained why he did not take the obvious choice of anastrophe which already has a different meaning. SpinningSpark 02:07, 18 January 2014 (UTC)

Anabolism and catabolism are widely used. NorwegianBlue ^talk 22:31, 18 January 2014 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 109.189.65.217 (talk)

The antonym of "cata-" is obviously "dogo-". Clarityfiend (talk) 02:46, 19 January 2014 (UTC)

Japanese help: Is this related to a New York City Japanese newspaper?

• (in Japanese) Uranishi, Kazuhiko (浦西 和彦 Uranishi Kazuhiko). "前田河広一朗と 「日米時報」" (Archive). 関西大学国文学会. 31 January 2002. Posted at Kansai University.

I found this source, and I want to confirm whether it is related to the Japanese American (日米時報 Nichi-Bei Jihō), a New York City Japanese newspaper that ran from 1924 to 1941. The source discussing the Japanese American stated that it was called the "Nichi-Bei Jiho". I found in a dictionary 時報 is Jihō and I already knew 日米 was Nichi-Bei. Does 関西大学国文学会 mean the "Japanese Literature Journal of Kansai University?"? (An official English name would be a bonus)

WhisperToMe (talk) 01:25, 18 January 2014 (UTC)

Probably, yes. The first three pages say:Kōichirō Maedagawa Hiroichirō Maedakō went to USA in 1907, stayed there for 13 years. He began to work for "Nichi-bei Shūhō/weekly news" as editor-in-chief in 1918. The newspaper changed its name to "NIchi-bei Jihō" in January 1919. "Nichi-bei Shūhō" was a newspaper first issued in December 1900 by Hajime Hoshi, father of Shinichi Hoshi. See also this. As far as I know, Nichi-bei is translated as Japan-US, not Japanese American. Oda Mari (talk) 07:35, 18 January 2014 (UTC)

Thank you for your help! The source I used stated that the name of the newspaper was the Japanese American but the "Nichi-Bei Jiho" was the Japanese name. Oda Mari, which pages exactly correspond to which piece of info? I may wish to cite this information in the Japanese in New York City article. WhisperToMe (talk) 20:22, 19 January 2014 (UTC)

WhisperToMe, you are right. I checked the name at NDL. See these. [2] and [3]. The ja name of the paper changed, but the en name was always Japanese-American commercial weekly. I just thought the general translation of the word. See [4]. Sorry that my brain is freezing and does not work well. Oda Mari (talk) 09:16, 20 January 2014 (UTC)

It's okay. I want to add the information about the paper from the Uranishi source. What pieces of information correspond to what page numbers? It's hard to copy and past the vertical text, so is it alright if you quote the pertinent parts of the text to the citations? WhisperToMe (talk) 02:36, 21 January 2014 (UTC)

It's OK. Which parts do you want? Oda Mari (talk) 10:07, 21 January 2014 (UTC)

Marchjuly is correct. His name is Hiroichirō Maedakō. See this NDL page. This is the 関西大学国文学会 page and they don't have en pages. You can contact Uranishi from here. Oda Mari (talk) 16:03, 18 January 2014 (UTC)

You are right in that 国文 in this context refers to Japanese literature, but 学会 refers to an academic society, association, or group and not a journal. I would translate 関西大学国文学会 as the Japanese Literary Society of Kansai University. However, since it is a proper noun, it's quite possible that the actual wording used by the university is slightly different (e.g.,the Society of the Study of Japanese Literature..., the Association of (the Study of) Japanese Literature.... If you want to know the exact wording, then maybe you can email them and ask. Here's their the university's website.

According to pdf file you provided, Hiroichirō Maedakō seems to have started working at the Japanese language newspaper 日米週報 in December 1918 as an editor. He became Chief Editor later that month, and the paper changed it's name to 日米時報 not too long after. Even though the dates you give are slightly different, I think this is probably the same 日米時報 that was published out of New York, but I'm not a native Japanese speaker and may be incorrectly reading the pdf. Sorry, I am unable to give you a more definitive answer. - Marchjuly (talk) 07:43, 18 January 2014 (UTC)

Oops, I didn't notice that somebody else had already replied. Sorry for repeating some of Ms. Oda's answer. - Marchjuly (talk) 07:48, 18 January 2014 (UTC)

PS: I'm not sure of the correct pronunciation of 前田河広一郎. I also thought it was Kōichirō Maedagawa, but names can sometimes be tricky. FWIW, his Japanese Wikipedia page gives Hiroichirō Maedakō as the correct pronunciation, but that could be a mistake. - Marchjuly (talk) 11:07, 18 January 2014 (UTC)

According to Kotobank, Heibonsha World Encyclopedia and Heibonsha Mypedia give "Maidako" as his surname while Kodansha Nihon Jinmei Daijiten, Shogakukan Daijisen, and Sanseido Daijirin gives "Maedakō". --Kusunose 02:14, 20 January 2014 (UTC)

@Kusunose:Thanks for double checking his name. Are you sure that Heibonsha gives Maidako? That seems like a typo. Should it be Maedako instead? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Marchjuly (talk • contribs) 05:11, 20 January 2014‎ (UTC)

No, it's not a typo. Mypedia has "Maidakō" まいだこう and "Maedakō" まえだこう entries referring to the "Maidako" まいだこ entry --Kusunose 08:43, 20 January 2014 (UTC)

I think "Maidako" まいだこ comes from his own writing. [5]. Oda Mari (talk) 09:25, 20 January 2014 (UTC)

Two grammatical questions in English

1) Which of the two sentences do you prefer grammatically? "He has got too many coins than he needs to" or "He has got too many coins than he needs" (without the word "to").

2) what do you think about "I wanted so much to love you"? I think that there is a difference between "I wanted to love you so much" and "I wanted so much to love you" because in the first form the emphasis focuses on the love rather than the will. But in the case of "I wanted so much to love you" the emphasis focuses on the will.5.28.162.188 (talk) 15:30, 18 January 2014 (UTC)

The first phrase you're looking for is "He has got more coins than he needs". I think you're right about the second one, the distinction between the will and the act. --TammyMoet (talk) 15:45, 18 January 2014 (UTC)

Or you could say, "He has (got) too many coins" - the "got" would be used in colloquial British English but not in formal speech or American English as I understand it. "Too many" and "more than he needs" convey a similar meaning, so you don't need to use both expressions in my opinion. Alansplodge (talk) 18:51, 18 January 2014 (UTC)

I'd accept "He's got," but un-contracted "He has got" is wrong for my American dialect. I'd say "He's got too many coins" "He has too many coins" "He's got more coins than he needs" "He has more coins than he needs" are all acceptable for me. Lsfreak (talk) 20:41, 18 January 2014 (UTC)

To make it explicit, this use of "than" requires a comparative to go with it. "Too many" is not a comparative. So "more coins than he needs" is possible, but not either version of the original sentence. --50.100.193.107 (talk) 21:35, 21 January 2014 (UTC)

• I perceive trolling here. Nobody who can come up with "the emphasis focuses on the will" could possibly think either variant in 1 is grammatical. Or am I just paranoid? Looie496 (talk) 19:12, 18 January 2014 (UTC)

• Ignoring your request for medical advice :o)

The OP geolocates to Israel. I know quite a number of ESL speakers who have an excellent memory for idiomatic phrases but are hopeless in finding the proper preposition, stumble over mass nouns and the like. Eg, there is a brief thread above about the distinction between “in the park” vs “at the park”, relating to a question from a Korean OP.

I have no idea about Semitic or Korean languages, but clearly, there must be significant differences in the basics of transscribing an idea into audible sound bites. I am sure that linguists have a proper term for this, but this “code switching” on a grammar / syntax level is not infrequent.

So much for the diagnosis; now let us precede to therapy and medication. --Cookatoo.ergo.ZooM (talk) 20:10, 18 January 2014 (UTC)

Hi everybody, thank you for your help. Don't suspect me that I'm troll or something like this. I'm a fresh student and just ESL as mention above. All what I do is to improve my English and to understand the grammar. Well, Let's move on the origin question... I have seen that some of you have not liked this sentence "He has got too many coins" because the word 'got' and some of you even recommend me to rewrite it to "He has too many coins". So, do you think that there is a difference between the two?! Seemingly, I see here clear difference between the two because the sentence: "He has got too many coins" says for me, that someone gave him too many coins. But in the second form "He has too many money" the meaning that I mention before is not found. Let me know your opinion about it. Again, thank you for the help. 5.28.162.188 (talk) 23:26, 18 January 2014 (UTC)

In British English, "he has something" conveys exactly the same meaning as "he has got something" as far as I can tell. The use of "got" seems to be a little different in American English. Alansplodge (talk) 00:16, 19 January 2014 (UTC)

If you want to use formal English, then you can make the distinction by saying: "He has obtained too many coins", or "He possesses too many coins". In British English "He has got too many coins" can be used for both meanings, and is regularly used with the second meaning, though it sounds slightly informal. In American English, "gotten" might be used for the first sense, but is archaic in British English (though it was once standard). Dbfirs 00:17, 19 January 2014 (UTC)

Sorry for my ignorance but I don't understand why the change of the tense make the verb "get" to other meaning?! The opposite of "to get" is "to give". So when I say "He has got too many coins from me" is equal to "I give him too many coins" or to "He get too many coins". So the question is why a change of the tense (from past simple to the past perfect) can change the meaning? 5.28.162.188 (talk) 00:32, 19 January 2014 (UTC)

I wouldn't say you are changing tenses. It appears you are, but it's a set expression - when you say someone "has got" something, it's not thought of a conjugation of "to get" even if that's what it was in the past. As I said above, I'm American, so perhaps others have different views. But I'd say it's better to think of "has got" as an emphatic "has," not a tense-change of "to get." Lsfreak (talk) 04:38, 19 January 2014 (UTC)

Right, the present perfect in AmE would be "has gotten", not "has got". But anyway, strictly speaking, the present perfect is present tense with a perfective aspect, so even if it were the present perfect, you wouldn't be changing "tenses" in the strict sense of the word. --Trovatore (talk) 05:05, 19 January 2014 (UTC)

Er, hmm. The verb in the matrix clause of I have been worrying about him since I first suspected he was an alcoholic is perfect, but I fail to see how the clause has a perfective interpretation: nothing about it suggests that the speaker's worrying is over. (And of course it's easy to construct clauses that are perfective without use of the perfect: I knocked it over; I killed the cockroach; I eat up all my breakfast cereal every day.) Conventionally, and with some good reason, "has got(ten)" is called the "present perfect" form; but the Cambridge Grammar of the English Language instead regards it as in a past tense. (And aren't there lects of US English in which "has got" is standard? I'm pretty sure I've seen "got" used as the past participle of GET by US writers.) -- Hoary (talk) 06:19, 19 January 2014 (UTC)

Well, I'm not actually sure that "perfective" is exactly the right word here (and I certainly wasn't talking about the progressive). The point is that it's strictly speaking present tense, and anything else is aspect. (Of course, that's probably the same sense in which English doesn't have a future tense, which is a claim I view as unbearably pedantic.) --Trovatore (talk) 07:40, 19 January 2014 (UTC)

In the sense of static possession, the U.S. past participle of "to get" is "got". In the senses of obtaining or becoming, the U.S. past participle of "to get" is generally "gotten". In some speech styles or dialects the verb "to have" pretty much disappears from the "have got" construction, in which case it would be hard to speak of a perfect... AnonMoos (talk) 07:07, 19 January 2014 (UTC)

Huh? Can you give an example sentence where AmE uses "got" as the past participle of "get"? "I've got such and such" doesn't use any participle; it's just an alternative way of saying "I have". --Trovatore (talk) 07:36, 19 January 2014 (UTC)

The only causal difference between the verbs in "They've got money" and "They've gotten rich over the past few years" is the meaning (not the syntax). Not sure what you'd call "got" in the first sentence other than a past participle... AnonMoos (talk) 15:11, 19 January 2014 (UTC)

I stand by my previous that it's a fixed statement. When I say "I've got a dollar," got plays no semantic role and lends none of its meaning of to acquire to the statement. "I've got a dollar" is semantically identical to "I have a dollar," and very different from "I've gotten a dollar," which has an active sense to it. Or another way, "I've got a dollar" is predicative possession and "I've gotten a dollar" is dynamic action. It may well have started out as a participle, but at least as it's used in my English, it doesn't make sense to talk about what role the "got" plays, because it doesn't play one, the whole phrase "has got" does. Lsfreak (talk) 06:12, 20 January 2014 (UTC)

There's nothing strange about the morphology or syntax of "They've got money", only the meaning. The only way to avoid saying that "got" in that construction is a past participle, is to postulate that "to get" has a special paradigm which is sensitive to categories which do not apply to the paradigms of other verbs in the English language. "Kick the bucket" is also a fixed phrase or phrasal idiom, but normally linguists would still say that "kicked" in "He kicked the bucket" is an ordinarily-inflected past tense verb and "bucket" is a basic singular definite noun, no matter how aberrant the meaning is... AnonMoos (talk) 19:57, 20 January 2014 (UTC)

An immigrants' son done good

This headline stopped me in my tracks. My first thought was a misplaced apostrophe (An immigrant's son …) but then I read Ruslan is the son of Belorussian immigrants, not just one immigrant. Back to the drawing board.

If the 2nd word were an adjective such as "rebellious" or "unconventional", then the whole phrase would be about Ruslan, and the indefinite article would fit nicely. But immigrant's or immigrants' are not adjectives. "An" in this case can only refer to the immigrants, and since the indefinite article "a/an" is inherently singular (in English, at any rate), this doesn't work. It would have to be A son of immigrants done good ..., but maybe that's not as catchy.

It troubles me that such a solecism could get through the editing process. Or maybe I'm an old fuddy-duddy. Is this sort of grammar considered reasonable these days? Even in a headline where the rules are frequently bent for effect? This one certainly grabbed my attention, but, I fear, for the wrong reason. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 21:29, 18 January 2014 (UTC)

Well it's definitely wrong, but newspapers are put together quickly and I'm never surprised to find misplaced apostrophes especially. A Dictionary of Modern English Usage is packed full of examples of bad English from newspapers.--Shantavira|^{feed me} 21:40, 18 January 2014 (UTC)

I'm not convinced that it is definitely wrong. Why is it different from "a members' bar" or "a women's college"? 86.171.43.151 (talk) 21:55, 18 January 2014 (UTC)

In those cases, members' and women's are being used attributively, not possessively. The women don't own the college and the members don't own the bar. But the immigrants do "own" - at least procreated - the son. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 22:18, 18 January 2014 (UTC)

Yeah, sorry, you may be right.... 86.171.43.151 (talk) 22:40, 18 January 2014 (UTC)

Plus I think it's not a members' bar but a members bar. PiCo (talk) 22:34, 18 January 2014 (UTC)

Probably "members bar" is just a mistake/laziness for "members' bar". A good test for these is to use a plural that doesn't end in "s", like "men" or "women". Would you say "a women bar"? 86.171.43.151 (talk) 22:40, 18 January 2014 (UTC)

Speaking of tests: An immigrant's sons is fine, and proves that "an" has nothing to do with the sons and everything to do with the immigrant. Pluralising immigrant's to immigrants' doesn't alter this. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 22:51, 18 January 2014 (UTC)

Pluralising immigrants fundamentally alters that (i.e. the grammar, not the relationship to the word 'immigrants', which is primary school stuff). You can't have an immigrants.--Jeffro77 (talk) 00:54, 19 January 2014 (UTC)

No, of course not. I expressed my self uncharacteristically poorly. My point is that, in such a construction, the existence of "a/an" depends on the possessor being singular; it has nothing to do with the grammatical number of the possessed. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 03:19, 19 January 2014 (UTC)

I think the article applies to different thing in the two cases. An immigrant's sons are the sons of an immigrant, whereas an immigrants' son is a son of immigrants. If you say "an immigrant's son" then you can't actually be sure whether the "an" applies to "immigrant" or to "son", but luckily it doesn't change the meaning, so you don't really need to know. --Trovatore (talk) 03:26, 19 January 2014 (UTC)

For some reason, for me anyway, "an immigrants' son" did not initially stand out as an error, but analogous examples, such as "a children's mother" or "a families' residence" do seem more obviously wrong, and may help to illustrate why "an immigrants' son" is wrong too. 86.171.43.151 (talk) 03:57, 19 January 2014 (UTC)

I don't really think it's wrong. You can say "an ungrateful son"; that's surely uncontroversial. So "an immigrants' son" is just using the word "immigrants'", slightly imaginatively, as a possessive adjective. --Trovatore (talk) 04:33, 19 January 2014 (UTC)

You meet a girl at a party and are asking about her background. She says what sounds like "I'm a lawyer's daughter", but maybe she really said "I'm a lawyers' daughter". Would anyone really think she meant the 2nd sentence? If so, what about the 99.9999999% of other people who will now have the wrong idea? If both her parents were indeed lawyers, wouldn't she be far more likely to say "I'm the daughter of lawyers", and leave the 1st sentence-type for the case where only one of her parents was a whatever? -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 07:24, 19 January 2014 (UTC)

If she 'really' said, "I'm a lawyers' daughter", then her grammar would be wrong. (If she's fluent in English, she'd more likely say, "My parents are lawyers.") To test for agreement, rephrase the possessive: an immigrant's son = son of an immigrant. Conversely, an immigrants' son = son of an immigrants, which is nonsensical. In the case of a members' lounge, members' is being used as a modifier (adjective) of lounge and not a possessive, as distinct from a member's lounge, which would refer to a lounge belonging to a particular member. The newspaper quoted at the outset of this query is simply wrong.--Jeffro77 (talk) 08:07, 20 January 2014 (UTC)

That's what I thought all along. Thanks for the confirmation. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 18:39, 20 January 2014 (UTC)

I disagree. It's not the best phrasing, but it is not ungrammatical. --Trovatore (talk) 19:38, 20 January 2014 (UTC)

See below. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 20:56, 20 January 2014 (UTC)

Should be either "A immigrants' son" or "An immigrant's son". Leaving out the "A" or "An" is fine, too. (I would suggest this, as the first form sounds awkward.) Also, shouldn't it be "did well" instead of "done good" ? So, my vote goes for "Immigrants' son did well". StuRat (talk) 22:58, 18 January 2014 (UTC)

Hmmm, I find it hard to accept "A immigrants' son". In the UK, "done good" is a deliberately incorrect expression (originally parodying people with bad grammar, in particular the football manager's phrase "The boy done good"). 86.171.43.151 (talk) 23:19, 18 January 2014 (UTC)

(ec) "A immigrant's son", StuRat? What school of tortured English does that come from (the same one that denies the existence of the apostrophe-free word "its", perhaps)? The indefinite article is either a or an, depending on whether the very next word, regardless of its grammatical relationships, starts with a consonant or a vowel sound ("a good boy", not "an good boy"; and "an awful boy", not "a awful boy"). -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 23:31, 18 January 2014 (UTC)

Agree with 86.171 that "the boy done good" is a well known idiom in the UK and IIRC in Australia. The Dictionary of Euphemisms (p.194) confirms its origin in "soccerspeak". Substituting "done" for "did" is a common element of Cockney and any number of other English dialects. Alansplodge (talk) 00:06, 19 January 2014 (UTC)

Tsk, tsk: here in Australia we don't call soccer "soccer", we call soccer "football". --Shirt58 (talk) 08:42, 19 January 2014 (UTC)

It looks like there is some backstory to this comment, which I would prefer not to know about. But you probably should be careful not to mislead anyone here. It's my understanding that what "football" means in Australia depends on whom you're talking to, and could be any of three, namely Aussie rules, soccer, or rugby. If that's not so, please elaborate. --Trovatore (talk) 19:59, 20 January 2014 (UTC)

---

Not sure how the apostrophe in "An immigrants' son" is different from that in "A children's book" or "A men's softball game" or "A women's clothing store". Anyway, it's definitely much better than the apostrophe of "Arabs' Got Talent"... -- AnonMoos (talk) 07:13, 19 January 2014 (UTC)

I explained that above re attributive adjectives: "A children's book" is a book written for children to read, but the expression conveys no sense of ownership by any particular child. A particular copy may currently be the property of some book store, and if sales don't pick up it may never be owned by any child. However, when a frazzled mother exclaims "Oh dear, the children's books are all over the room", that is a pure possessive. Those books are the property of her untidy children, but they may not all be "children's books" per se. I used to read Encyclopedia Brittanica at the age of 9. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 07:38, 19 January 2014 (UTC)

In "a children's book" etc the genitive noun (not adjective!) is used attributively. ¶ I have a handkerchief. I don't share it with anyone. It's mine, just mine. It's pink. Oi, are you calling me effeminate? Look, I'll open it for you -- see, it's big, it's a men's handkerchief. "Men's" here is attributive. ¶ Well, this is a good question. First off, "A [sic] immigrant's son" violates grammar; forget it. Now, in order to evaluate grammaticality, I suggest adding a complication that will make the results more awkward but also more informative:

• He's an immigrant from Russia's son. Awkward but OK (for me). Clitic genitive "s" moves to the end of the NP. In my idiolect, this fellow could be either the sole son of some immigrant or just one son among two or more of this immigrant. That the former interpretation is possible shows that the NP needn't have an indefinite interpretation.
• Immigrants from Russia's acculturation problems seem unsurmountable. Awkward but OK (for me). Clitic genitive "s" again moves to the end of the NP, but leaves the plural "s" intact.
• *He's an immigrants from Russia's son. Crash! (for me). My little mind isn't happy with "an ... son" (which of course elsewhere is fine, eg an awful son) but instead wants "an" to be the determiner for "immigrants", plural, and it can't be.

I'm mystified by this. Consider:

• It's a spies' handshake. Fine.
• It's a spies from Russia's handshake. Awkward but OK (for me). Or if you prefer:
• It's a Men from UNCLE's handshake. Again awkward but OK (for me).

Damned if I know why the last two are passable whereas He's an immigrants from Russia's son is not. Could this be a question for Language Log? -- Hoary (talk) 08:35, 19 January 2014 (UTC)

The difference, as I see it, between "a spies' handshake" and "an immigrants' son" is the one previously identified: that in the former case "spies'" is a generic attribution, not designating specific possession by some particular spies. If the phrase "immigrants' son" could generically describe a type of son then "an immigrants' son" could be possible, but I'm not aware of any such usage. 86.128.2.181 (talk) 14:33, 19 January 2014 (UTC)

The entire phrase spies from Russia's (or Men from UNCLE's) functions as a modifier, not a possessive. Immigrants' [son] from Russia functions as a possessive, not an adjectival modifier of son.--Jeffro77 (talk) 08:12, 20 January 2014 (UTC)

But it can function as an adjective, and in this phrase, it obviously does. I think you're quite wrong if you claim "an immigrants' son" is ungrammatical. It's not the way I would prefer to write it, but that's a separate issue. I wouldn't write "Buffalo buffalo" etc either, but once explained, it's clear that it's grammatical. --Trovatore (talk) 19:52, 20 January 2014 (UTC)

I guess it depends on what one means by "grammatical". I don't think I've ever seen the "an immigrants' son" formula written anywhere before this, which is why it hit me so squarely between the eyes, so it's hardly the stuff of descriptive grammar. As for prescriptive, maybe you could suggest a source that gives this its imprimatur. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 20:56, 20 January 2014 (UTC)

Which source says it isn't? It's well-formed, along the lines of "a spies' handshake", which I gather you accept; you just have to interpret it in the parallel way. --Trovatore (talk) 20:58, 20 January 2014 (UTC)

This falls into the same class as "Frank is she and I's son". The meaning is clear, but so is "I ain't done nuffink wrong". This query was never about meaning. You could argue that "she and I's son" is well-formed ([she and I]'s son) and therefore unobjectionable, but no source would ever give it the Good Housekeeping Tick of Approval. Likewise with my query, which was "Is this sort of grammar considered reasonable these days?", not "Can this sort of grammar be justified?". -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 21:42, 20 January 2014 (UTC)

Trovatore's case for 'justifying' the grammar is very weak. There's no indication that the newspaper intended "immigrants'" as an (extremely awkward) adjectival modifier, and very little reason to suppose that anyone ever would. (And it's not as though the SMH isn't prone to gaffs.) The adjectival modifier used in the rather tenuous example of a spies' handshake is idiomatic, and doesn't represent any actual rule of grammar relating to possessives.--Jeffro77 (talk) 07:58, 21 January 2014 (UTC)

I don't know what to tell you guys. It doesn't push my "ungrammatical" button. Apparently it pushes Jeffro's and Jack's, but they haven't offered me any particularly compelling reason to take their judgment over mine. Possessives are adjectives, or at least have much in common with them, so the "not an adjective" distinction does not do it for me. --Trovatore (talk) 09:43, 21 January 2014 (UTC) By the way, I pretty much agree with Hoary's judgments above. --Trovatore (talk) 09:45, 21 January 2014 (UTC)

Apparently it doesn't push Gary Shteyngart's button either: "an immigrants' election party". ---Sluzzelin talk 09:57, 21 January 2014 (UTC)

Possessives are determiners, not adjectives. Adjectival use of immigrants' election applied to a[n] ... party is not the same usage as that endorsed by Trovatore.--Jeffro77 (talk) 11:33, 21 January 2014 (UTC)

Um — who sez? I would argue that that is precisely the intended meaning in this case. --Trovatore (talk) 20:50, 21 January 2014 (UTC)

This question seems to have polarised the party. I doubt if any good will come of further discussion. Thanks all for your interesting contributions. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 21:02, 21 January 2014 (UTC)