1

Which is correct?

He raised his hands to get John, Stephen and Joyce's attention.

or

He raised his hands to get John's, Stephen's and Joyce's attention.

Since attention is something that can't be counted, do I leave the 's in the last noun, or does each noun need it?

tchrist
  • 134,759
A. Joe
  • 11
  • 1
    To be fair, there is a complication here. They don't have a 'group attention' even though the noun is, as you say, non-count. But you need to pay deference to the fact that they need to focus independently, so '"He raised his hands to get John's, Stephen's and Joyce's attention." Though '... the attention of ...' probably sounds less jarring. – Edwin Ashworth Mar 05 '16 at 20:26
  • 1
    I agree with you that each name should be in its possessive form. I also agree on rephrasing the sentence, using "... the attention of ..." (that way it would not need the possessive forms). – A. Joe Mar 06 '16 at 01:06

0 Answers0