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What would I use when setting up a gallery for many members to submit to?

I am thinking, Members’ Gallery, as it is a gallery belonging to all the members, but I frequently see the use of just Members Gallery.

tchrist
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LiamMurray60
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  • the above is not very enlightening if that was my issue nor is it my issue, however I can see their similarities so I can understand your thinking on the possible duplicate – LiamMurray60 Aug 06 '14 at 16:49
  • As well as that question, there's another one which is more directly similar, but that's also marked as a duplicate of the User's Guide one. You are welcome to enhance this question to explain how earlier questions do not cover it. – Andrew Leach Aug 06 '14 at 16:53
  • I don't see how it's a duplicate at all. The other question is about choosing between singular possessive and plural possessive. This question is about choosing between plural possessive and simple plural. – phenry Aug 06 '14 at 19:20
  • If I tried to use the other question to answer my own I would come up none the wiser. In fact I did look at it and try to use it to answer my own question because the duplicate possibility came up before I had any answers on my question. I failed to use that information to deduce the answer to my question as they focus on entirely different though not dissimilar points – LiamMurray60 Aug 07 '14 at 18:18

2 Answers2

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A "members' gallery" is a gallery belonging to the members. A "members gallery" is a gallery of the members.

If all the pictures in your gallery are of your members, then you've got yourself a "members gallery". If the gallery contains pictures by or for your members, then you're offering your members a gallery: it's your members' gallery.

For reference, here's a picture of Madam Tussaud's Presidents Gallery (note: no apostrophe). It contains lifelike wax figures of all 44 US presidents; but I doubt a single US president has ever visited it:

Three US presidents in Madam Tussaud's Presidents Gallery

Dan Bron
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Members' Gallery is preferable, in that it conveys the meaning of the phrase more exactly: it correctly identifies the members, plural, as possessing the gallery, in the linguistic sense. However, if the non-possessive members is thought of as a simple noun modifier, then members gallery can also be acceptable, just as member gallery would be.

My impression is that a construction like members gallery would be more acceptable in the UK, with its recent campaign against the greengrocer's apostrophe. In the US, it would be more likely to be flagged as an error by prescriptivist grammar pedants; linguistic descriptivists (such as most of the higher-rep users here) probably wouldn't have a problem with it, although some might consider it more awkward than the alternative.

phenry
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