Can you explain why do we write e.g. Fourier's law, Ohm's law, Newton's law of cooling, etc. but Soret effect, Dufour effect instead of Soret's effect, Dufour's effect? What is the principle?
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2Just convention. Laws get possessed, but effects are differentiated by noun adjuncts. – Matt E. Эллен Oct 02 '14 at 11:59
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2Related: Saxon genitive to identify algorithms, methods, techniques, theorems and “{somebody}'s theme” vs “{somebody} theme” — Saxon genitive dilemma. – choster Oct 02 '14 at 14:13
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4It's *The Dufour effect/Soret effect/McGurk effect. Definite noun compounds need definite articles, and proper names are almost always definite. Possessives, on the other hand, are determiners already and can't co-occur with articles: _The Fourier's Law_, *the Harry's sister. – John Lawler Oct 02 '14 at 16:02
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1@JohnLawler, to see a minor exception to the “Possessives can't co-occur with articles” rule, type the donald's daughter into a google search box and pictures of Ivanka Trump and Tiffany Trump will appear. – James Waldby - jwpat7 Oct 02 '14 at 18:37
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3That's not an article; that's part of a proper name: The Donald. – John Lawler Oct 02 '14 at 19:17
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Note that this is not specific to laws/effects named for people; laws are generally either "X's law" or "the law of foo" (or "X's law of foo"), whereas effects are generally either "the X effect" or "the foo effect" (or "the X foo effect"). – ruakh Oct 03 '14 at 03:15
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I have one more question to be sure: Arrhenius' law, Arrhenius's law or Arrhenius law? – mc2 Oct 03 '14 at 11:27
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1@mc2: The "rule" I go by is as follows: If adding an additional S at the end of a possessive word creates a difficult-to-pronounce word, don't add the S and leave the apostrophe. So for example, I opt for Moses' and not Moses's, or Jesus' and not Jesus's. Arrhenius's isn't that much of a tongue twister, at least for me. I don't think a grammarian will slap the back of your wrist with a ruler for writing it Arrhenius', however--though I could be wrong! Don – rhetorician Oct 03 '14 at 17:16
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1Give "Soret effect" a little more time; say, a couple hundred years. Who knows, it might just become a law. Don – rhetorician Oct 03 '14 at 17:17
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The only authority I've been able to find on this particular question is The Oxford Style Manual (2003), which provides this summary:
12.1.6 Eponymic designations
Names identified with specific individuals may be treated in several ways. Traditionally a disease, equation, formula, hypothesis, law, principle, rule, syndrome, theorem, or theory named after a person is preceded by the person’s name followed by an apostrophe and an s [examples omitted]; ... An apparatus, coefficient angle, constant, cycle, effect, function, number, phenomenon, process, reagent, synthesis, or field of study named after a person is usually preceded by the name alone or its adjectival form [examples omitted]. Eponymic anatomical or botanical parts may incorporate the name either as a possessive [examples omitted] or adjectivally [examples omitted]. Something named after two or more people is known by the bare surnames, joined by an en rule [examples omitted].
Regrettably the Oxford manual doesn't explain how this distribution of possessive and nonpossessive forms arose. Bu clearly Fourier's law, Ohm's law, and Newton's (various) laws fall into the traditional "disease, equation, formula, hypothesis, law, principle, rule, syndrome, theorem, or theory" group, while Soret effect and Dufour effect fall into the traditional "apparatus, coefficient angle, constant, cycle, effect, function, number, phenomenon, process, reagent, synthesis, or field of study" category.
Eponymic designations of diseases and syndromes, however, are rapidly moving out of the former category and into the latter, according to Oxford. I hope to examine this phenomenon shortly in another question.
As for your follow-up question about the law of Arrhenius, the same section of The Oxford Style Manual says this:
any variation follows the normal rules governing possessives (Charles's law, Descartes's rule of signs, Archimedes' principle, Chagas's disease, Fajan's rules) [cross-reference omitted].
Why the lack of an s after the apostrophe in Archimedes' principle? The Oxford Style Manual again (at 5.2.1):
Use an apostrophe alone after classical [such as Demosthenes] or classicizing [such as John Duns Scotus] names ending in s ...
Arrhenius may sound like a classicized name, but it's actually the last name that Svante August Arrhenius (1859–1927) of Sweden was born with. Therefore, the approved (by Oxford) way to handle the name of of his eponymic law is "Arrhenius's law."
Sven Yargs
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