Reclaiming possession of the mother tongue

Mr Abbas has a house. The house is Mr Abbas's. It isn't Mr Abba's house. Not yet. Mr Abba wants the house, but he will not have it unless he takes it. If it should become Mr Abba's house and Mr Abbas reclaims it, the house will be Mr Abbas's again.

Does anyone else wonder why so many ABC people get the possessive wrong? For example, "Sydney is New South Wale's capital city". No it is not. Surely it is New South Wales's capital. And Alan Jone doesn't have a radio program: Alan Jones has one, so the program is Alan Jones's -- it is not Alan Jone's program.

And on Breakfast this morning, Damascus's became Damasca's. There is, as far as I know, no city called 'Damasca'.

Perhaps SCOSE (the ABC's Standing Committee on Spoken English) might have a little training session with ABC writers and speakers. The average ABC employee should be able to learn about possession in, oh, I should think two or three day-long workshops at the outside.

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