Grammar question!

[Habibi]

This is baking my noodle. Is it "Five years experience in blah-blah" or "Five years' experience in blah-blah"? Or even "Five year's experience in blah-blah"? I think it's the second, but I've seen the others.

[Tangerine LaBamba]

1. Five years'

You might better say "Five years of experience with ........"

But, the plural possessive is correct if you don't use the "of".

[kentuck]

2. Years is plural...

So my guess is that the proper punctuation is (years')...

[jimshoes]

3. Years is just plural, no apostrophe needed

nt

[Captain Hilts]

Isn't it the experience of five years?

I've got some grammar gaps, I know.

[Occam Bandage]

24. It is. You are correct. I have no idea why so many here think no apostrophe is needed.

Would you say "one week notice?" No, you'd say "one week's notice."

[pacalo]

33. It does need an apostrophe, which takes the place of the word "of".

[LooseWilly]

39. Actually, I disagree.

I mean, the attempt to use the apostrophe in place of 'of' would make a certain intuitive sense... but that's only because 'of' is often used to express the idea of possession. As is the apostrophe. But... in this case the years don't actually have possession of anything... and it's only a false sense of equivalence that suggests that the use of the apostrophe can take the place of the word 'of'.
Just as a pedantic side note... in Spanish there are no apostrophes for possession... you always use the word 'of', ('de')... which detail has proven to be something of a clarifier, I think, for the intuitive leap that everyone is having to suggest that the apostrophe is in fact needed.
I believe an apostrophe is not correct grammar in this case... but, it is close enough for government work, as the saying goes. I'm betting that, unless this is for a resume for a position that regards grammar very highly, you could get away with using the apostrophe. If you really want to use it.

[Captain Hilts]

4. Years'. There you go! nt

[Bicoastal]

5. #2. But why not just say "five years of experience?"

[Captain Hilts]

7. That would be appropriate/correct as it is more formal. When in doubt, don't take things out! nt

[bobburgster]

12. Like that saying!

When in doubt, don't take things out!

[Captain Hilts]

13. I just thought of it, but that really helps me. That and 'complete the sentence'

to get your 'he/she' 'him/her' 'me/I's correct.

[bobburgster]

47. Always struggled with grammer...

My wife is a wiz at it......I had to relearn it before I went back to college. Pretty good (or is that well;) at it now.... not something I would take up as a vocation though.

[proud2BlibKansan]

6. I agree with Tangerine

But it would be just a minor error if you left off the apostrophe. I see that kind of mistake a lot.

[lunatica]

8. Five years' because it's more than one year which makes it years...

Then you add the apostrophe without the 's' because the word already ends in an 's'

[bemildred]

9. "Five years of experience in blah-blah ..." is correct.

Anything less is vernacular.

[Captain Hilts]

15. VERY good point. At minimum, it's informal, which is not appropriate. nt

[bemildred]

16. Clarity is all. nt

[hyphenate]

10. Most of the time, the word "of" is implied,

making it a possessive. However, I believe you can use either of the first two. Personally, I would use the second one.

[Habibi]

11. Heh. Nine replies in five minutes!

DU doesn't disappoint! I think I'll go with the suggestion to change to "Five years of experience . . ." Seems the safest option. On a resume, you don't wanna screw up the little things.

[EFerrari]

17. DU: Eight years of experience policing grammar everywhere!

:)

[Habibi]

21. Yup! Why I came right here

when my Merriam didn't address this particular issue. :D

[EFerrari]

30. I've learned more about grammar and punctuation here than I did

in six years of grad school in the English Department at Berkeley.

:rofl:

[LooseWilly]

40. Ironically, it was the couple of years of high school Spanish...

... rather than the 4 ish years of the English Department at Berkeley that provided me with a clue about an answer...

[Metta]

14. It's the first. Years is plural. The whole phrase is fy of e, hence no ' is needed.

:hi:

[TahitiNut]

29. Correct. The 'year's do not possess the experience. It's "five years (of) experience."

:shrug:

[Occam Bandage]

31. Did you ever perform "a day labor?"

Did you ever see "a lovely evening entertainment?" Do you get "a full night sleep?" Does a recent hire have "a year experience?"

No. It's "a day's labor," "a lovely evening's entertainment," and "a full night's sleep." It is "a year's experience." And it is "five years' experience."

[Metta]

34. nodiing and waving.

:toast: in acknowledgement.

[lunatica]

18. They're both wrong if you want to get real picky

Grammatically correct it would say Five years of experience. But usually when speaking it can be assumed although it's still incorrect.

[Occam Bandage]

20. No, it's not. It's perfectly legitimate.

Who told you it wasn't?

[lunatica]

28. Nobody. I actually posted two responses. Contradictory ones.

Just in case I was wrong.

[Occam Bandage]

19. You would not say "one year experience," would you? No. You'd say, "one year's experience."

It is similarly "five years' experience," or the experience of five years.

[Habibi]

22. Dude, you oughta read the discussion on the use of the apostrophe

in my MW Dictionary of English Usage. It'll give you a headache.

[Occam Bandage]

23. I've never seen any book on English say that the apostrophe should not be used

in this case. It is "two weeks' notice," "five months' experience," and "four dollars' worth," just as it is "a week's notice," "a month's experience," and "a dollar's worth."

[Habibi]

36. Well, that makes perfect sense to me, too. But I've seen it done

differently, elsewhere, and Merriam didn't specify in this case. But thanks! :toast:

[Occam Bandage]

44. The reason for the confusion is that it sounds the exact same when you say it,

and people can't think of a reason to put the apostrophe there (and people try to be wary of inappropriate apostrophes). There isn't nearly the same amount of confusion in the singular form, though. Nobody would say "a good night sleep" or "one week notice." They'd say "a good night's sleep" and "one week's notice," and they'd write the same too. The apostrophe still seems a bit strange to people, but it would certainly be weirder without it: "one weeks notice" is flagrantly incorrect.

[Davis_X_Machina]

25. Precisely.

Parallel expressions abound: 'a good morning's work', not 'a good mornings work', e.g.

[Orrex]

26. "Half a decade of experience"

:evilgrin:

[secondwind]

27. it's the second one..........n/t

[Jakes Progress]

32. Leave out the apostrophe.

Notice does not belong to the years. "Years" is an adjective describing the type of experience. If you follow the course advised by the pedant who wrote ES&L you would need to use an apostrophe to indicate the missing word "of". In that case you would also have to write things as silly as sea' shore and truck' stop and cat' food. Simple is better. Clear is better. That apostrophe just sends the reader looking or connections.

Of course the other problem is that you wanted to use this in a resume. There is no guarantee that the person who might read it will know what it should be. He/she may think an apostrophe is necessary. If you put one in, he/she may know it doesn't. Pretty good catch, that catch 22.

[Occam Bandage]

35. Do you say, "a good night sleep?"

Or do you say, "a good night's sleep?"

[Jakes Progress]

41. When I write the phrase,

I write "a good nights sleep". The sleep does not belong to the night. This is a perfect example of the point I was making. Now if you want to say "Jake's sleep was sound", that would be different. That would be my sleep to which you are referring.

The world is apostrophe crazy.

[Occam Bandage]

42. You are wrong. Why did you put the 's' there? It's only one night. It isn't a plural.

You didn't write "a few good nights sleep," you wrote "a good nights sleep." That is completely ungrammatical, just as it would be to write "a good cups of coffee". Do you think it would be grammatical for people to then write "a good night sleep?" And why doesn't anyone ever write that?

(Seriously, google the phrase. Count how many incidences of "a good night's sleep" and "a good night sleep" you find. Or even "a good nights sleep." I went five pages and couldn't find a single incident of anything but "a good night's sleep.")

[Jakes Progress]

45. Hence

my warning to the OP that there are differing views on the subject. Is it your contention that the sleep is possessed by the night? If that is how you read the phrase, then you can confidently put an apostrophe there. Google "cat nap". Does anyone use apostrophe. You can't really use a common colloquialism to prove a grammatical point. Our vibrant language is full of deal breakers.

For that fact, you can't even base a decision confidently on a grammar book. It would depend on which book and which edition. My office once fielded a question about punctuating a sign for a family's gate. It involved a plural, possessive family name that ended in two esses. Tricky. So the staff each went to the reference materials at hand. We came up with three answers, each demanded by a grammar authority. The funniest was that one stodgy, but respected, old source (Warriner's) gave conflicting results depending on which edition you checked.

My nights sleep is sound with my decision based on the logic of the phrase. But it is not a hill I wish to die upon. Or upon which I wish to die. Seriously, language and its rules are up for grabs and evolve constantly. Trying to strangle it into submission has been tried. The French, with their committees and commissions, can't even keep their small language under control. English is a many-headed hydra.

[TexasObserver]

37. No apostrophe.

I have experience. How much experience? Five years experience.

I have 5 years experience. The "years" are not possessive of the experience. The term "five years" identifies how much experience I have. The sentence "I've got five years experience" makes clear that "I" am the possessor, not the "five years."

[Occam Bandage]

43. English is screwy with lengths of time as a quantifier.

It is, of course, a cup of coffee, two cups of coffee, and two cups coffee. But we throw that completely out the window with time. Everyone agrees that "a good night sleep," "a hard day work" and "his life goal" are all awkward. We say "a good night's sleep," "a hard day's work," and "his life's goal." That would of course suggest that the plurals of both are all "two good nights' sleep," and "two hard days' work." We do treat lengths of time in this context as we do the possessive across the board.

As a semi-aside, Mandarin Chinese, the only other language in which I have any degree of competence, does this as well. In Chinese (which does not mark plurals) it is "two cup coffee" and "two year's experience"

[LooseWilly]

38. It's five years experience.

The apostrophe is meant to indicate possession... as the years are not in possession of anything, there is no need to use an apostrophe. If it makes you feel better though, you can say 'Five years of experience in blah blah...'

[Captain Hilts]

46. If I said that, I would leave out the apostrophe and add an 'of' as in 'five years of experience'.

[progressoid]

48. The Beatles: A Hard Day's Night

:)