No definitive answer readily to hand...

fluffyhamster · Post by **fluffyhamster** » Tue Oct 18, 2005 5:56 am

Just a quick question for you guys (I'm feeling kinda lazy I guess). Is there much if any difference between these two sentences (it's not so much a problem for me, but it could be vexing for a curious student):

The study theorizes about the role of dreams in peoples' lives.

They condemned the new law as an unwarranted intrusion into people's private lives.

(Both taken from OALDCE6).

Stephen Jones · Post by **Stephen Jones** » Tue Oct 18, 2005 7:11 am

People's is the possessive of people; peoples' is the possessive of peoples, that is to say tribes, communities or nations.

fluffyhamster · Post by **fluffyhamster** » Tue Oct 18, 2005 7:48 am

Ah, thanks SJ! I "knew" it was something like that, but I didn't SEE the (formally obvious!

) difference I was sensing there (my mind was more heading towards the semantics of 'all people(s) all across the world dream, but only the people in the country that has passed the new intrusive law will be affected by it', which would've perhaps resulted in more or less the same penny eventually dropping, just in a more roundabout way

).

fluffyhamster · Post by **fluffyhamster** » Tue Oct 18, 2005 11:26 am

My brain is slowly getting round to working (I think) - I mean, would any of you say that the first example there is actually "wrong" (one could argue that 'the study', unless international in scope, only concerns the role of dreams in the lives of a certain "nation" of "people")?

The answer probably is that one can't be sure in this instance, and in turn that corpus examples themselves won't always reveal the true workings of our brains (it's likely that such rules need to be consciously dwelt on and fully learnt before any consistency might emerge in a person's usage).

Anyway, I'll certainly remember what SJ said and stop the droning now...

thethinker · Post by **thethinker** » Tue Oct 18, 2005 12:59 pm

Well, replace "peoples" with "tribes" and you'll certainly see that it doesn't make much sense.

The study theorizes about the role of dreams in tribes' lives.

Seems to suggest a study about all tribes in the world, and that their dreams are somehow collective in nature.

Stephen Jones · Post by **Stephen Jones** » Tue Oct 18, 2005 7:15 pm

Until we know more about the study we can't say whether we are dealing with a spelling mistake or not.

Come, the thinker, are you suggesting that the American Dream doesn't affect the lives of many Americans?