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micaelo

Feb 28th, 2008 06:09 am

In fifty years' time

In the phrase "in fifty years' time" is the apostrophe strictly necessary or can it be omitted? Thank you

mesmark

Feb 28th, 2008 10:12 am

Re: In fifty years' time

Good question. I wouldn't use an apostrophe. I believe it's a noun phrase modifying another noun, but in that case we would tend to use the singular. This may be one of those special cases...

When I googled it, it looks like without the apostrophe is slightly more common, but I only looked through 4 pages of entries.

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