How To Use Possessive In A Sentence
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Some spouses tend to nag or criticise each other; others may be jealous or possessive.
Times, Sunday Times
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He had never professed love, just a lustful possessive desire that fueled the cruelty in his obsession.
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If you used the shortened form, you'd just say "in-laws' house", but since you're using the full form, it's correct to pluralise the noun and not the modifier ('parents' rather than 'in law'), and then make the entire term possessive, because it's acting as a noun cluster. ("parents-in-law's")
The Skinny Kitten Story (In Which I Am Both A Liar And A Kitten Thief)
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Your wife cheating on you may have made you untrusting and possessive but that will damage any relationship.
The Sun
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attributive: -s/-l directive: -is locative: -eBy renaming the genitive case as "attributive", we make it clearer that these endings are not just restricted to mere "possessives" or "ablatives" but rather we recognize their many other usages.
Liber Linteus and religious formulae, part 2
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The new tenants are being put into occupation on probation; they are allotees of land and will not be able to claim possessive rights until the Land Commission is satisfied that they are capable farmers, and have proved their capacity to make productive use of th eland and furnish the regular payments that will amortise the purchase costs.
G.K.'s Weekly - Land Policy of Ireland
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A relationship looks good now you both can see the difference between being in love and being possessive.
The Sun
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Tata She is especially possessive about her shoes.
Times, Sunday Times
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small children are so possessive they will not let others play with their toys
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Some spouses tend to nag or criticise each other; others may be jealous or possessive.
Times, Sunday Times
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But given that it is the same in nominative and accusative cases, just like a noun, it is a little surprising that it‘s possessive is a special case, especially since its and it’s sound identical.
2007 September « Motivated Grammar
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Danny could be very jealous and possessive about me.
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Possessiveness, jealousy, and protectiveness are high.
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Maybe it was my possessive adjectives.
Times, Sunday Times
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We all know that in English you form the possessive by adding an apostrophe.
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Be advised they'll also be in no mood to tolerate even the slightest suggestion of possessiveness.
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but then the possessiveness and competition, ingrained in us from early childhood, from preschool even, is like a thorn in our side which pricks every time a foreigner is seen.
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Some spouses tend to nag or criticise each other; others may be jealous or possessive.
Times, Sunday Times
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She was terribly possessive of our eldest son.
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'That's mine!' she said possessively.
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The intensity of his possessive attention is unchanged, but its quality is dramatically transformed.
Trauma and Recovery
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Possessive, vain and self-absorbed, she stifled him until, he said, he could no longer stand women.
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Complications kick in, and previously contained feelings of jealousy, betrayal, insecurity and possessiveness threaten to overwhelm what had seemed a rather civilised arrangement.
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She was terribly possessive of our eldest son.
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Some spouses tend to nag or criticise each other; others may be jealous or possessive.
Times, Sunday Times
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He was too possessive of her, she was too jealous of him.
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That kiss was like nothing I had felt before and not in a nice way, it was possessive, aggressive and demanding… it scared me.
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We used to have lots of rows as he was very jealous and possessive.
The Sun
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He is possessive, jealous and treats her badly.
The Sun
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Close, exclusive, two-person cliques characterized by possessiveness and jealousy are formed.
It's So Much Work to Be Your Friend
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They can be used as components of compounds, but if they are used on their own they must be used with possessive prefixes.
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In a tolerant, mature, self-confident country it was not necessary to put your hand on your heart to say you loved it, or even to refer to it with possessive adjectives.
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She is very possessive of polar paraphernalia.
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Arg had accused the tearful blonde of being jealous and possessive.
The Sun
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Being close without being possessive gives love its best chance.
The Sun
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A woman can be very possessive about personal accessories.
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Some linguists believe that English possessive is no longer a case at all, but has become a clitic, an independent particle that is always pronounced as part of the preceding word.
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For Kilpatrick, the friend of … part of the phrase establishes possession, and thus the ‘s possessive is redundant.
2008 February « Motivated Grammar
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The time had come when the Forsytes might resign their natural resentment against a "flummery" not theirs by birth, and accept it as the still more natural due of their possessive instincts.
The Forsyte Saga, Volume III. Awakening To Let
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My advice, then, is this - if in doubt about whether to use an apostrophe to form a possessive, put it in; but if in doubt whether to use one to form a plural, leave it out.
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I think that the possessive morpheme is technically a clitic.
Preposterous Apostrophes III: The kings of England’s « Motivated Grammar
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She had al - ways been highly possessive and destructive, but this condi - tion so transformed her that she was neither.
Here There Are Monsters
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That leaves a nagging question: if Africa doesn't inspire a possessiveness in visiting Westerners, then what is it about China or East Asia in general that does inspire this possessiveness?
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Whose is a possessive pronoun.
Between Worlds: A Reader, Rhetoric and Handbook
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All three examples are from the very first sentences of their essays; possessives are being used to introduce discourse referents.
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Because of the over pursuit of the external determinacy, teachers are likely to adopt mechanical possessive preparation for lessons, which can hardly meet the needs of the present curriculum reform.
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I had a previous relationship in which the man was jealous and possessive; this a long time ago.
Times, Sunday Times
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Love is not possessive Love is open, embracing others.
Positive Parent Power
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For what it's worth, the offending sign uses an apostrophe to suggest the possessive of a singular noun instead of the plural intention.
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My original sentence had the example--"The Queen of England's language"--where the possessive clitic 's applies to the entire noun phrase.
Enclitics and noun phrases in Etruscan
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When _self_ is added to the personal pronouns, as himself, myself, itself, themselves, &c. they are called _compound personal pronouns_, and are used in the nominative or objective case, but not in the possessive.
English Grammar in Familiar Lectures
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Form the possessive correctly.
A Short Guide to Writing About History
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This job is like a possessive, high-maintenance lover.
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Being close without being possessive gives love its best chance.
The Sun
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Maybe it was my possessive adjectives.
Times, Sunday Times
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Retrograde Scorpio Venus tends to showcase the acquisitive, possessive, less lovely traits of the Tauran shadow.
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Given that the prenominal possessive is itself an noun-phrase, we should expect a prenominal possessive to be able to occupy the noun-phrase slot within a larger prenominal possessive.
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Her mouth was being taken with a possessive intensity that obliterated thought and left only sensation.
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You realise that you have become more possessive, that you would prefer your partner to commit herself more deeply to you.
POSITIVE THINKING: Everything you have always known about positive thinking but were afraid to put into practice
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Nick's starting to get possessive and jealous.
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A similar misunderstanding would occur if the writer opted for her as the singular possessive pronoun.
Between Worlds: A Reader, Rhetoric and Handbook
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Some singular nouns ending in an _s_ sound form the possessive by adding the apostrophe alone; as, _for appearance 'sake, for goodness' sake_.
Practical Grammar and Composition
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The men looked away hurriedly when they looked upon the Princess's beauty, and possessive wives quickly drew their husband's attention.
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Log in to Reply jadechimera (UID#1821) on September 8th, 2009 at 4: 33 pm lack of possessive apostrophe is also fail …
Do you know they use your head to block little girls vaginas on the internet | My[confined]Space
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Everybody is a singular pronoun and requires a singular possessive pronoun: his or her.
Between Worlds: A Reader, Rhetoric and Handbook
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If we were not greedy, possessive creatures why would we need a means to measure our worth?
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We used to have lots of rows as he was very jealous and possessive.
The Sun
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Some spouses tend to nag or criticise each other; others may be jealous or possessive.
Times, Sunday Times
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But the evidence shows that possessive apostrophes have been dropping like flies for years.
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The dress says "Fuck off I don't sell E's" (I'll tell her when I see her that Es is not a possessive and does not require an apostrophe, but I was off duty at the time).
Archive 2007-04-01
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Dale felt a sudden flare of protectiveness, possessive anger, and a father's pride.
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The only noun inflexion preserved in Modern English is the possessive ending ‘s’ which is a survival of the common Germanic masculine singular genitive case ending.
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What was I to do with a possessive, selfish mother and a husband with similar traits?
Times, Sunday Times
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He wanted especially to believe that he was in this case acting in a manner uncontaminated by public ambition or sexual possessiveness.
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Other poems present maternal love as liberating, not possessive.
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He still had a mysterious air about him and I was afraid of the possessive beast that lurked just below the surface.
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Possessive personal pronouns are used to show ownership or possession.
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The thing that really struck me was his attitude towards the two women, which was possessive and controlling.
Times, Sunday Times
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The second is neurotic: everyone is liable to instinctive twinges of possessiveness, so lovers shouldn't rub each other's noses in adventures outside their patch.
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He's got to settle down and commit; or else chill out and be less possessive.
Times, Sunday Times
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The mania type of love can be characterized as obsessive in that it is possessive and dependent.
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The concept of the possessive apostrophe appears to have evaded his fine mind.
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You are a very possessive and demanding person, rarely impulsive or casual.
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Whose is a possessive pronoun.
Between Worlds: A Reader, Rhetoric and Handbook
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Although she may claim that her possessive behaviour arises from her love, there might be a need for her to realize that love must be sustained by trust.
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He was a jealous, possessive guy before and that is just what he is now.
The Sun
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She was on her own because she'd recently finished with her possessive and controlling boyfriend.
The Sun
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After a possessive , some, any, both or a number, unless it is used with an adjective:We'd like to exchange our home with a British family's .
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Everybody is a singular pronoun and requires a singular possessive pronoun: his or her.
Between Worlds: A Reader, Rhetoric and Handbook
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People get possessive, and people are not as romantic as they used to be.
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When I thought about that, I thought about the outrage of the Catholic mother, whose possessive control of her children brooked no opposition from competitive vampires.
Vampire Love « Tales from the Reading Room
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It was scarcely definite enough to be called brogue, yet there was a trick in the turning of the sentence, the wrong sound of a letter here and there, that was almost irresistible to McLean, and presaged a misuse of infinitives and possessives with which he w as very familiar and which touched him nearly.
Freckles
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This is a good point at which to explain possessive plurals, as we have already added an “s”, we can now simply add an apostrophe; “the scrotes’ lawyer” (the lawyer for several scrotes).
Cross & Rude « POLICE INSPECTOR BLOG
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I now believe that de la Grasserie's semantic characterization is more accurate in this respect: a nominal construct with a personal possessive pronoun brings into the picture a further qualification of the noun phrase than does the noun phrase with just a definite article.
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He had never professed love, just a lustful possessive desire that fueled the cruelty in his obsession.
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Plural nouns ending in _s_ form the possessive by adding only the apostrophe ( '); as, _persons, persons'; writers, writers'_.
Practical Grammar and Composition
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Unceremoniously walking up to Stefàn and grabbing him from behind, she wrapped her arms around his waist in a possessive manner and lustfully stuck her tongue in his ear.
Who Said It Would Be Easy
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Leaning over, he kissed her possessively on the mouth.
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He's very loving, but also possessive, and like all psittacines, he has a wicked bite.
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She was on her own because she'd recently finished with her possessive and controlling boyfriend.
The Sun
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Oh look, I can understand him feeling very possessive about his budget, he's been working on it a long time, but I think he needs to calm down a bit.
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The rule is a perfectly absurd concoction, which grows out of a basic confusion about parts of speech (possessives are not adjectives, so you can't say ‘It looks John's,’ for example).
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An eagle is possessive and once it has caught a fox it will not let go.
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It is anyone's guess how possessive she would feel when they reach the 'marriageable' age but how does she takes care of the parenting part while busy on a shoot?
The Economic Times
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She works as a nurse, is a bit possessive of her son and lives in Slough.
The Sun
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She's always been so possessive and she just… I don't know.
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Relations that are implicit in the semantic structure of a possessed noun can affect the range of plausible interpretations of a possessive construction.
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Now I'm a broad-minded fellow, but one sickening perversion we must not tolerate is the insertion of an apostrophe into the possessive 'its'.
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What was I to do with a possessive, selfish mother and a husband with similar traits?
Times, Sunday Times
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The thing that really struck me was his attitude towards the two women, which was possessive and controlling.
Times, Sunday Times
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Some people like to dominate, some are submissive, some can handle possessiveness, for others it would drive them crazy.
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She had cause to feel possessive.
Liberty: The Lives and Times of Six Women in Revolutionary France
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The biggest stratovolcano in the galaxy," said Scott Mutchler with almost possessive pride.
Firestorm
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He is possessive, jealous and treats her badly.
The Sun
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Anger, jealousy, possessiveness, suspicion, aggression - Harry experiences a whole gamut of human emotions, but seems to able to control them much better that he did in The Phoenix.
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Form the possessive correctly.
A Short Guide to Writing About History
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His great love remained his mother Louie, a dominating, possessive woman who spoiled and adored her son above everything else.
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Maybe it was my possessive adjectives.
Times, Sunday Times
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We used to have lots of rows as he was very jealous and possessive.
The Sun
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The first link features Linda Fiorentino as a nightclub chanteuse who seeks refuge in a church from a possessive ex-boyfriend.
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Is it being possessive, in some perverse way, on behalf of its public?
Times, Sunday Times
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possessive pronouns
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Everybody is a singular pronoun and requires a singular possessive pronoun: his or her.
Between Worlds: A Reader, Rhetoric and Handbook
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In fact, using its with an apostrophe in its possessive sense sits uncomfortably within the orbit of ‘applied excellence’.
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It wasn't a possessive spirit who just couldn't let it's house go, and it wasn't a spectral incubi and succubi who would attack you at night and give you a whole new take on the phrase ‘bed bugs’.
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The assassin possessively slid an arm around the woman when he noted a few men were eyeing the pair, many openly leering at Nicole.
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More or less the same story can be told of the binding patterns in certain inalienable possessives and idiomatic constructions in English.
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The second person came to the human world, have shown unusual the possessive and destruction.
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It was scarcely definite enough to be called brogue, yet there was a trick in the turning of the sentence, the wrong sound of a letter here and there, that was almost irresistible to McLean, and presaged a misuse of infinitives and possessives with which he was very familiar and which touched him nearly.
Freckles
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Nick's starting to get possessive and jealous.
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That is, they cannot be used in isolation but must occur either as part of a compound word or with a possessive prefix.
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However, because he didn't know how to use the possessive apostrophe, it became known simply as ‘French toast’.
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He followed her, settling his weight on top of her in a most possessive way and not allowing her any room to escape from his relentless pursuit.
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But the evidence shows that possessive apostrophes have been dropping like flies for years.
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he was sleeping, one arm flung possessively across his wife
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The child was very possessive with his toys.
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These are "topos" ( "place") inscriptions followed by a name in the possessive case, which gave official authorization to a particular salesman to use this spot.
Interactive Dig Sagalassos - Upper Agora Report 1
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Prenominal possessives (John's car, my hat) normally function as definite expressions.
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Others unintentionally sabotage their relationships by exhibiting overly possessive, clinging, dependent behaviour.
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She is unhappy, bossy, meddlesome, and possessive.
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Danny could be very jealous and possessive about me.
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In his book, Halpern deals with one such case of Barzun's being criticized by Pinker, in which Pinker says that Barzun "earned an 'F'" because he called the possessive use of a noun an adjective.
Once I was a happy Pinkerite
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He's a bit possessive about his CDs - I wouldn't dare ask to borrow them.
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Sometimes, she wondered if his possessiveness was the same that he might extend toward a horse or a rifle.
Sweet Defiance
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There were a lot of books that were in the children's names that were burnt, and children are very possessive of their things.
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It's a relational noun, which means that a possessive shows who the noun relates to.
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Mr. L., amongst what he called his improvements of the translation, thought proper, when the Father Almighty is addressed, to erase the personal and possessive pronouns _thou_ or
Letters of George Borrow to the British and Foreign Bible Society
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I shall not discuss the cause of this change in the use of the possessive, though it seems to me an evident Gallicism, nor shall I open the question of whether it is a mere passing fad or the beginning of an actual alteration in the language.
A Librarian's Open Shelf
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I had worn a little blue velvet jacket with gold lace and now I clutched it possessively.
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The first person plural possessive pronoun ‘our’ is occasionally used in lieu of an article in order to denote a certain universality.
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But he was controlling and possessive.
The Sun
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Bruce spent 30 years living away from his native north-east before swapping Wigan Athletic for Sunderland in May, but he always stayed fiercely true to those Wallsend roots and his possessive pronoun of choice remains "wor" rather than "our".
Football news, match reports and fixtures | guardian.co.uk
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I've ruined every relationship with my possessiveness.
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A tall punk with flaming red hair had his arm slung tightly around her waist in a possessive manner.
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The possessive apostrophe disappeared in place names such as ‘Coopers Creek’ decades ago.
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Everybody is a singular pronoun and requires a singular possessive pronoun: his or her.
Between Worlds: A Reader, Rhetoric and Handbook
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There is a jealousy that goes beyond protecting and becomes possessive.
Christianity Today
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flummery" not theirs by birth, and accept it as the still more natural due of their possessive instincts.
Complete Project Gutenberg John Galsworthy Works
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And that's typically what happens where a mother may be very, very possessive of that child.
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Love is not possessive Love is open, embracing others.
Positive Parent Power
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When possessive relationships are nested, all but the last element are construct and all but the first are genitive: ‘head horse-of the-man-of’.
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They can be used as components of compounds, but if they are used on their own they must be used with possessive prefixes.
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She was on her own because she'd recently finished with her possessive and controlling boyfriend.
The Sun
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A similar misunderstanding would occur if the writer opted for her as the singular possessive pronoun.
Between Worlds: A Reader, Rhetoric and Handbook
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The child was very possessive with his toys.
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He's got to settle down and commit; or else chill out and be less possessive.
Times, Sunday Times
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Arg had accused the tearful blonde of being jealous and possessive.
The Sun
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But there are limits to possessiveness, productively, which is why I chose to make that verbal correction.
August « 2009 « Attempting Elegance
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There are also English-specific grammar tags associated with the name. These tags indicate possessiveness, reflexiveness and whether the viewer is viewing his or her own profile.
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Being unevolved, they are of the lower nature, instinctive, self-assertive, confused, possessive and protective of their immediate environment.
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I could put up with his outbursts, the jealousy and possessiveness but not the violence.
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His body pressed atop mine so possessively; so needful and wanting.
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For effrontery of possessiveness is there anything that can exceed the nest-making, planet-populating, female, human woman?
CHAPTER XV
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As the possessive is the only case of nouns that has a distinctive inflection, it is only with this case that mistakes can occur in construction.
Higher Lessons in English A work on english grammar and composition
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a possessive parent
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The children were tested on a variety of morphological processes (past-tense formation of novel verbs, possessive forms of novel nouns, etc.)
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But common experience proves that, in impressionable persons, the activity of nerves and imagination stimulated by works of art has the possessive and unopposable force of a dream, and controls the physical organism, sometimes with quite inaesthetic consequences.
Unprintable
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How do you do a possessive of a registered trademark that is itself already a possessive?
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I once learned that you should put possessives before gerunds; that ‘rule’ is sometimes awkward and pointless, but maybe it has something going for it here.
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She had cause to feel possessive.
Liberty: The Lives and Times of Six Women in Revolutionary France
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To make the word possessive, you add an apostrophe and an "s" (rope's).
Arianna Huffington: Arianna's Grammar Pet Peeve: The Apostrophe Crisis
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She wanted to overcome anger, possessiveness and jealousy.
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It's easy to see why Lucy and Mina would be tempted by the fleshly liberation he represents, especially in contrast to the stodgy, possessive dorks who would enslave them with marriage.
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The problem with him is that he is already showing signs of being controlling and possessive, and that's likely to get worse.
The Sun
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The asserted rule must be that a pronoun cannot refer to the noun portion of a possessive - but I've never heard of any such rule.
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Naturally, he is very possessive about his collection.
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He said yesterday: ‘I have no doubt David loved Ann very much, but it was a possessive and jealous love.’
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The intensity of his possessive attention is unchanged, but its quality is dramatically transformed.
Trauma and Recovery
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To the correct orthoepist, several persons on the stage give offence in the pronunciation of the pronoun possessive MY -- speaking it in all cases with the full open Y, as it would rhyme to _fly_, which should only be when it is put in contradistinction to _thy_ or _his_, or any other pronoun possessive: in all other cases it should be sounded like _me_.
The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor Vol I, No. 2, February 1810
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We began by having a heated discussion on the use of apostrophes and whether the contractive use and the possessive use can be combined.
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And if the heath no longer belongs to the king at all, does it actually require a possessive apostrophe?
Times, Sunday Times
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Her boyfriend was getting too possessive so she finished with him.
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Mr Dallas said Edmunds was possessive and jealous of Miss Lawrance and took the view that if he could not have her then no one else would.
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Everybody is a singular pronoun and requires a singular possessive pronoun: his or her.
Between Worlds: A Reader, Rhetoric and Handbook
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Instead of being demanding and possessive like before, he was a whole new different man.
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I think that men's love is very possessive and involves ownership, competition, and performance.
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Maybe it was my possessive adjectives.
Times, Sunday Times
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He's a bit possessive about his CDs - I wouldn't dare ask to borrow them.
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Do they encourage creativeness rather than possessiveness?
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He was very possessive towards her.
