eats shoots and leaves
I've got an apostrophe question. I had a translation today about cheese made from the milk of goats. Bloggers, do I need an apostrophe, and if so, where? I.e. is it:
goats' cheese (does the cheese belong to the goats?)
goat cheese (is the cheese made of goats?)
goats cheese (compound noun - first element usually singular)
goat's cheese (does the cheese belong to a specific goat?)
Google searches came up with hundreds of hits for all of them.
All help gratefully accepted.
Kalhnyxta se olous, good night each and nos da i chi gyd
Jamie
posted by ronanj @ 7:10 pm
5 comments
5 Comments:
Tom asked me to help you out.
It's "goat cheese". If you talked about the milk, you'd say "goat's milk cheese". "Goat cheese" doesn't mean it's made from goats. It means it's cheese of the goat type. Why do we write "goat's milk cheese"? Because the milk does "belong" to the goat. You could also write "goat milk cheese" but "goat's cheese" would imply that you had given the goat some cheese to eat.
Thanks a million, Dr. Zen. I shall amend my translation immediately (I'd chosen the wrong option).
Cheers,
Jamie
I've always heard it pronounce "Goat Cheese", hoever if you must, "Goat's Cheese" would work as well. The plural, "Goats Cheese," however is flat out wrong, because in this case the word "goat" is used as an adjective, describing the type of cheese, and "cheese" is the noun. You can pluralize a noun but NEVER an adjective. The plural posessive, "Goats' Cheese" is completely wrong for the same reason.
Cheers, Kevin.
Agree with your logic completely. Goat cheese it is.
Thanks,
Jamie
I can't see anything wrong with "goats' cheese" ("goats' milk cheese", if you insist on the full monty) any more than with "cows' milk", "sheep's (milk) cheese", "lambs' kidneys", "hens' eggs", or (if you want to go up-market) "quails' eggs". Those are the usual pronunciations and spellings I (as a British-English speaker) encounter on my food-hunting forays. Pigs' ears are a popular bar snack in Spain -- but I've tried not to make a pig's ear of this reply...
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