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I have seen on many sites a section labeled "Comments," referring to an area where you can leave a message for someone, or on something. When referring to this section is it correct to say

Comments Section

or

Comment's Section

or even

Comments' Section

From what I've learned about apostrophes is that you use them when you are denoting something belonging to something else. i.e., Alice's watch.

Would the section, in this case, belong to the Comment(I think I've heard the word "Possessive," is that correct?)? Or would it actually belong to the "multiple comments" and be Comments' instead?

A second part to this, instead of making another question.

If an apostrophe is in fact needed, would referring to a user's section?

i.e., Ralph's Comment's section...

I'm just curious if you could do 2 words in a row with apostrophes.

Thanks.

Community
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XaolingBao
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  • This isn't a duplicate at all, and it's sad someone down voted me. – XaolingBao Jul 05 '16 at 22:35
  • I agree that this is not exactly a duplicate of the cited Q., but have you also seen this Q. User’s Guide vs Users’ Guide. I was not the down-voter, but the down vote could be because a question like this would probably be better on the English Language Learners site. This site is specifically stated to be "for linguists, etymologists, and serious English language enthusiasts", and is not primarily intended for such basic questions. – TrevorD Jul 05 '16 at 23:29
  • Thanks @TrevorD I have not seen that Question, so I will take a look. I didn't know there was more than one English stack site. I just joined this stack today, but have seen questions of all kinds being linked to this stack, so I thought this was the place, especially with your example being on this stack as well. Your link pretty much sums up the first part of my comment, in that it should be Comments' section Thanks a lot for this link. The one you linked should be the duplicate, and not the one that was actually linked... If you could make that an answer, that would be great. – XaolingBao Jul 05 '16 at 23:54
  • Thanks fine. I see I omitted the link to English Language Learners (ELL) - so there it is. As you say, there are different views on what is regarded as 'basic', and I'm just judging it on experience of other Qs on each site. BUT be careful not just to post the identical Q. on ELL, because then it will still be regarded as a duplicate of this. I think you could flag this Q. and ask for it to be migrated to ELL - cont'd ... – TrevorD Jul 06 '16 at 00:03
  • ... cont'd - BUT first you would need to explain (possibly by amending your Q.) why it's not a duplicate and what Qs you have that are not answered by the related Qs. ELL & this site (ELU) work closely together: cross-posting on both sites is not allowed, and earlier Qs on either site can be regarded as duplicates. Hope that is of some help. – TrevorD Jul 06 '16 at 00:05
  • Sorry, just noticed you said " If [I] could make that an answer, that would be great." Unfortunately, I can't add an answer now that the Q has been closed. I think the answer you've already got below sums it up pretty well also. – TrevorD Jul 06 '16 at 00:09

1 Answers1

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Here "comments section" is just acting as a compound noun. It's the section for comments, much like the "news section" is for news or the "entertainment section" is for entertainment. That being said, "comments' section" is still correct and would mean roughly the same thing, it's just not common usage. "Comment's section" should be reserved to a section that belongs to a single comment.

Rose Kunkel
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