[Publib] Librarian Knowledge

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In a message dated 5/16/2009 1:27:07 P.M. Pacific Daylight Time,  
jlashmet at cumberland.lib.nc.us writes:

It just sounds strange, and  not grandiose at all. When is the possesive 
used in naming something, even if  it belongs to the person who owns it?
 



True enough.  There is Dodger Stadium, Yankee Stadium; the Eiffel  Tower, 
and the Ferris Wheel.  You get Tiger Stadium even though the team is  not the 
Tiger.  The possessive disappears in English through use.  The  apostrophe 
disappears in the written form, too, hence Schlitz Beer, Coors Beer,  Bayer 
Aspirin. Even in official use things get gone:  Down Syndrome;  Wasserman 
Test.  Because people ask for a Schlitz, and their doctor says  they need a 
Wasserman--though the connection is tenuous.
 
But whenever a folly is undertaken--those historically grand designs which  
may or may not come to nothing--the possessive adheres to the person  
responsible.  Hence "Seward's Folly," otherwise known as Alaska.  By  the way, 
Eiffel's Tower was once a folly, but when it had hung around long  enough to 
be considered a landmark, it lost the apostrophe-S, at least in  English; in 
French it never had one.
 
M. M. 
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