Hi, Mike!  Recently you wrote in a message to ALEXANDER KORYAGIN:

 ak>  Look: "former Trump campaign official" and "Donald
 ak>  Trump's presidency". Why the former is without the
 ak>  Possessive case?

 MP>  Actually, if you change it from "former Trump campaign
 MP>  official" to "Trump's former campaign official," the
 MP>  possessive is correct.


           With the change in word order, yes.  I see why the author may
have chosen not to use the possessive twice within such a short space,
though... a repetition of "Trump's" would seem awkward &/or
redundant to many readers but "his" would be confusing because
1-2 other men are involved in this scenario.



 MP>  I am not certain what the rule is there, but that is
 MP>  how we were taught.


           The way we were taught... i.e. assuming you are a native speaker
of English... depended more on pattern recognition than on rules.  Both
parents & teachers would correct obvious errors in spelling &/or
grammar, and some class time would be spent discussing the use of the
apostrophe.  But in general what adults did was to model standard English
& expect us to pick up on it....  :-)



 MP>  That said, there may be some other rule that makes
 MP>  "former Trump campaign official" incorrect English,
 MP>  too.


           IMHO there is some justification for writing "former Trump
campaign official" in a news report.  There's a lot more to it than I
was taught during my childhood & adolescence, however, and while many
people describe journalese in unflattering terms the subject probably
didn't arise because nobody we knew personally would have thought of
speaking or writing in such a manner....  :-Q




--- timEd/386 1.10.y2k+