What to Do When a Possessive Blocks Punctuation

What to Do When a Possessive Blocks Punctuation What to Do When a Possessive Blocks Punctuation What to Do When a Possessive Blocks Punctuation By Mark Nichol When one refers to a city followed by the name of the state or a larger entity in which the city is located, the larger entity is set off from the smaller one by a pair of commas. But how do you treat such a reference when the place name is possessive? Revise the reference. A DailyWritingTips.com reader sent me this note: â€Å"I came across this in this morning’s New York Times: â€Å"In Portland, Oregon’s Pearl District, Dave Trausneck said he draws inspiration from the many states he has called home.† I suppose there should be a comma after Oregon’s but it sure would look hinky. It’s an awkward little phrase. What do you think? Should it be recast to read, â€Å"In the Pearl District, in Portland, Oregon, Dave Trausneck said he draws inspiration from the many states he has called home†? Oddly, as far as I know, this question is not resolved in any writing or editing handbooks, but some online commentators agree with the reader and me that a comma after Oregon would be quite hinky. But the New York Times usage, as she suggests, possesses some hinkiness of its own. I would change it with a revision similar to hers, but with a construction that reduces the comma count: â€Å"In the Pearl District of Portland, Oregon, Dave Trausneck said he draws inspiration from the many states he has called home.† A similar aberration appears in such sentences as â€Å"The Albany, New York-based company was founded in 1999.† Technically, the hyphen, to demonstrate that â€Å"New York,† not just York, is being attached to based as a phrasal adjective, should be an en dash, but that subtlety is lost on many readers (and writers). Regardless, it’s better to write around this style break: â€Å"The company, based in Albany, New York, was founded in 1999.† Alternatively, consider whether â€Å"based in† is superfluous it’s relevant only if the company is headquartered in Albany, New York, but has other locations and delete the phrase if appropriate: â€Å"The Albany, New York, company was founded in 1999.† Then there’s the intrusive insertion of a parenthesis between the possessive form of a name and the noun it refers to, as in â€Å"The law went into effect when Russia’s (then the Soviet Union) road use was not as heavy because fewer citizens owned vehicles.† Should â€Å"Soviet Union† also be possessive? No, because it’s a parenthetical insertion of the different name of the country during the period being referred to. But revise the syntax to avoid the possessive form altogether: â€Å"The law went into effect when road use in Russia (then the Soviet Union) was not as heavy because fewer citizens owned vehicles.† Want to improve your English in five minutes a day? Get a subscription and start receiving our writing tips and exercises daily! Keep learning! Browse the Style category, check our popular posts, or choose a related post below:15 Terms for Those Who Tell the FutureConnotations of 35 Words for Funny People40 Irregular Verbs That Can End in â€Å"-t†