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I read some threads here where native speakers wonder why we, non-natives, are afraid to use 's with inanimate objects. Almost all of the commentors say that it is ok to use 's in such cases.

The thing is that most of the grammar books, for example, the renouned R.Murphy's Grammar in Use series states that things and places, etc are used with of. He gives examples - the roof of the building,the beginning of the film, the name of the village, the cause of the problem, the back of the car, the capital of Spain.

I checked their usage in Ngrams and it doesn't find the above written examples with 's.

At the same time, native speakers say that it is ok to use a car's antenna, house's windows. I have several questions:

  1. When is it ok to use inanimate objects with 's and when it is not?
  2. Most of the natives here wrote that the above-mentioned rule (in Murthy's book) is long gone and outdated
  3. Are there any modern grammar books that shed some light on this issue?
  4. Is this a characteristic of informal English or is it acceptable in formal writing (like IELTS)?

Thanks a million

My Lingvo
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    It would help to provide links to the posts you read and summarise what they say. Here's 2: https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/15679/saxon-genitive-usage-question https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/30385/can-one-explain-the-different-distributions-of-the-saxon-and-the-analytic-norma – Stuart F Jan 19 '23 at 11:01
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    Often the idiomatic phrases use attributive nouns, e.g. "the car antenna". – Barmar Jan 19 '23 at 11:47
  • While we don't often say the village's name, the building's roof, the film's beginning, I find these expressions perfectly comprehensible. – Peter Shor Jan 19 '23 at 11:57
  • These are the post links I was referring to - https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/1031/is-using-the-possessive-s-correct-in-the-cars-antenna and https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/50588/why-is-it-usually-friend-of-his-but-no-possessive-apostrophe-with-friend-of/50639#50639 – My Lingvo Jan 19 '23 at 12:22
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    OR maybe it's just that we don't *write* these constructions in texts that Google Ngrams has in its corpus. Copyeditors may have learned the rule of not using 's with inanimate objects, and corrected authors who did. – Peter Shor Jan 19 '23 at 13:19
  • The metaphorical possessive is the cat's meow. – Yosef Baskin Jan 19 '23 at 15:03
  • Probably it's a matter of persons being normally referred to by short phrases and non-persons (of which there are many more, and many more types, than persons) by longer phrases. Apostrophe-S is a suffix and does not go well after 5 syllables of denotation, so of gets preferred in some cases and Zero in others. Especially in print, as @PeterShor points out. – John Lawler Jan 19 '23 at 16:55
  • @Barmar "The car antenna" fails to express the desired meaning, because it fails to refer to the car. It could be any old aerial intended for a car --- it might not even be on a car. – Rosie F Jan 19 '23 at 18:13
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    Yes, we can make a distinction between 'the table leg' and 'the table's leg': the former refers to a type of leg, the latter refers to a leg associated with a table (which was probably mentioned earlier). – Peter Jan 20 '23 at 14:15
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    Does this answer your question? Can one explain the different distributions of the Saxon and the analytic (Norman) (periphrastic, 'of') genitive Burchfield's analyses, in Fowler. Very renowned. – Edwin Ashworth Jan 20 '23 at 16:01

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To search Ngram Viewer for phrases containing apostrophes, you need to enclose them in square brackets. All the examples you gave are well-attested with -'s, except for "car's back," which seems to be an exception.

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  • Wow, thank you so much for the clarification! I wondered why I didn't find any instances of those examples, that's why) So, it is more common to use 's with inanimate things than with animate, is it correct? Is it considered to be an informal style? If I use 's with inanimate objects in an IELTS writing, will it be a mistake? thank you! – My Lingvo Jan 20 '23 at 10:02
  • @My Lingvo This is a really murky area. Most here would probably distinguish grammaticality (my car's left rear wheel, his bike's brakes, the village's name, the problem's cause ... all grammatical) from idiomaticity (the usual choice of native speakers). Grammars often fail to distinguish between these. And it takes a lifetime to get even near to mastering preferred usages. Register is a further complication, as you hint: The Triffids' Day would sound ludicrous, as would a tendon of Achilles (though how much this is down to unfamiliarity is moot. And Achilles usually drops the ' here.) – Edwin Ashworth Jan 20 '23 at 16:09