Date:  Fri, 7 Jul 1995 21:41:15 -0400

From:  James C Stalker <stalker[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]PILOT.MSU.EDU>

Subject: Re: Faculty and Librarian



>     librarian's code

>     librarians' code

>     librarian code

>

The first means one librarian and the code belongs to the librarian.

The second means two (or more) librarians and the code belongs to all of them.

The third is a new development, maybe.



A good analogy might be secretary. They have settled on National Secretaries

Week. Plural, but not possessive.



Traditionally, faculty is noncount; secretary or librarian is count.



Now, how about the possessive problem: faculty code vs. faculty's code. Is the

first the code for the faculty imposed by someone else and the second a code

that the faculty imposed on themselves? Or do they mean the same thing (no

matter where the code came from) with the first being an attributive noun (or a

compound noun) and the second a possessive noun, that is different syntactic

structure, same meaning?



The best bet might be #3, on the grounds that librarian code in this case is to

be construed as a compound noun. Forget the faculty. They aren't much help

anyway.