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As far as I know, when the possesive is used, I really should not use articles because it would bind to the same noun. E.g.:

A two-day trip
Two day's trip

However, I have just found a site which reads:

A two weeks’ notice is a formal declaration of your intention to resign two weeks from the day you submit it.

Is that truly correct?

F

John V
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  • Possible duplicate of Should “two weeks vacation” be written “two weeks’ vacation” with a possessive apostrophe?; see also Should possessive 's be used when there is no possession in the strict sense?. – Edwin Ashworth Oct 09 '19 at 11:13
  • @EdwinAshworth I did read these, and they did not really answer my question,. – John V Oct 09 '19 at 11:18
  • The two weeks' notice example and the 'With nine days wonder, the trend seems generally towards the dropping of the 'associative rather than true possessive' apostrophe-s, but this is not the only practice followed.' extracts certainly address your question. But 'a two-day trip' is certainly far more natural sounding than 'a two day's trip', and 'a four-week notice' is probably still quite a lot less common than 'a four weeks' notice'. Google Ngrams should reinforce this view. – Edwin Ashworth Oct 09 '19 at 11:27
  • @EdwinAshworth Sure, I understand the trend but from the grammar perspective, one still should be correct and the other should not..? Or if not correct, more grammatical? – John V Oct 09 '19 at 11:27
  • Grammar may evolve more slowly than word usage, but it still changes. At times, conflicting usages exist, sometimes quite harmoniously, but arguments are almost inevitable between hyper-prescriptivists (legalists) and hyper-descriptivists (radicals / the progressives) over what should be considered acceptable. Svartvik & Quirk suggest a 5-point scale of acceptability. . Think about the vastly more common title working mens clubs (no apostrophe). It has to be accepted as not incorrect nowadays, but traditionalists are spitting feathers over the appearance of this strange new word mens. – Edwin Ashworth Oct 09 '19 at 11:32
  • As for use of the article, 'a nine days/day's/days wonder' is a fixed expression (though I've never seen it pluralised: 2 nine-d...). The same is true of 'a 2/4 weeks' notice'. You can consider these as single lexemes, compound nouns, as in 'my two-weeks' notice' (given in the first link above), a dogs home, a working men(')s club, a dead man's handle (deducible in the second linked thread).... Below are the Google Ngrams showing usage: – Edwin Ashworth Oct 09 '19 at 11:45
  • a two-day trip,a two days' trip,a four week notice,a four-week notice,a four weeks' notice (I think you need to click on the blue button). – Edwin Ashworth Oct 09 '19 at 11:47
  • In my opinion, giving two weeks' notice isn't declaring you're intending to resign at the end of the two-week period, it is itself the resignation. Exactly when your last day at work will be is then subject to negotiation even if you nominate a date. – nnnnnn Oct 09 '19 at 12:08

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