Dear readers, you will be tickled and impressed to hear that my dear lover and I managed to turn a romantic dinner into an opportunity for a pedantic row on Friday. Why? Well, there was goat’s cheese on the menu, of course. Specifically “chèvre goat’s cheese”, which even with my rudimentary French I can see is quite funny.
But ’twas apostrophes we were arguing about (as you do). Funnily enough it’s an argument I’ve had before, with the chief sub at The Grocer. He likes to make it adjectival, you see – so goats milk, cows milk, subs desk. It was actually this that caused the main part of Friday’s argument, which quickly descended into:
P: “But if you say ‘goats cheese’, that makes cheese a verb – goats can’t cheese.”
C: “You’re being deliberately obtuse!”
P: “But they can’t cheese, that’s ridiculous!”
C: “You’re deliberately misreading – no-one would ever read it that way!”
P: “You’re being too kind! Stop making excuses for people!”
C: [increasingly shrill] “You’re being…” etc etc.
You’ll be glad to know that after the waitress had prised us apart, we eventually made up. Oh it’s all jolly good fun. Much more interesting than arguing about who didn’t put the bin out.
As I see it, there are three arguments here:
- goat’s cheese – goat is singular because we are referring to it as a species; one species.
- goats’ cheese – the milk comes from a number of goats, so we treat goat as plural
- goats cheese – the goat is being used as an adjective to describe the variety of cheese
This morning I put out the following question on Twitter:
The answers have come in thick, fast and varied. Here are the ones I’ve received so far (in reverse chronological order, Twitter-stylee).
PPeterthompson Peter Thompson
chrisleonmiller Chris Miller
Linguagroover Richard Dixon
guardianstyle Guardian style guide
grouchotendency James Eagle
SnoozeInBrief Tom Freeman
PPeterthompson Peter Thompson
lozzajenner Laura J
SnoozeInBrief Tom Freeman
lozzajenner Laura J
citizenhelene Citizen Helene
I think you probably need to get a life. However, having said that, some thoughts:
• Goat(‘)s(‘) cheese should probably be struck from the lexicon as it is just plain wrong.
• The Americans (bless them) have a simple solution with is to ignore the “s”. It is “goat cheese” because they use it adjectivally, and make it clear they are doing so.
• Americans, obviously, are just plain wrong in most things linguistic, so you are right, right, right about goat’s cheese coming from the goat, generically.
Or not. Whatever…
Comment by Freelance Unbound — June 27, 2011 @ 10:59 am |
Sounds like a life to me.
Comment by substuff — June 27, 2011 @ 11:09 am |
Fair point – I’m spending my evenings trying to figure out pivot tables…
Comment by Freelance Unbound — June 27, 2011 @ 11:11 am |
Well that would be a close second choice, I must admit.
Comment by substuff — June 27, 2011 @ 11:17 am |
Goat’s, cow’s and sub’s every time. Your evening out sounds like a fun time to me. I seem to recall many a family debate about nuance, grammar, spelling, etc. around the meal table. Beats Monopoly any day!
Comment by Stephanie Mezulis — June 27, 2011 @ 9:27 pm |
As it’s the cheese of a goat and the milk of a cow (it isn’t necessarily derived from several beasts), I’d go with goat’s and cow’s. And I would absolutely insist on subs’ desk, as there are several subs on a subs’ desk. If there’s only one, why worry about the desk? Call them a sub.
Comment by AussieSub — June 28, 2011 @ 4:26 am |
I’ve just remembered I have the Australian Gourmet Traveller style guide in my drawer. A fair yet strict friend wrote it and it’s quite entertaining. The following passage on the word “quality” gives us their take on our little conundrum:
“Avoid using ‘quality’ in a general sense, especially regarding ingredients (‘quality goat’s curd’). Unless the reviewer is being specific – e.g. ‘vegetables handpicked by the chef at dawn, still covered in dew’ or ‘Goaty Goat Farm’s goat’s curd’ – the word ‘quality’ is redundant.”
And if we’re of the opinion that apostrophes are ugly, ugly blemishes on the wondrous beauty that is unpunctuated text, I’d use “goat cheese” over “goats cheese” (cheese made from goats?).
Comment by AussieSub — June 28, 2011 @ 4:44 am |
Not one I’ve considered before but seeing that menus are adjective heavy i.e. French bread, delicately-marinated steak, I’d agree with the adjective approach. But I’d make it ‘goat cheese’ rather than ‘goats cheese’ as meat doesn’t have plurals even though something like ‘chicken casserole’ could indeed include several chickens.
Comment by DanBill — June 29, 2011 @ 2:57 pm |
Sorry for the late comment, but this is only an issue in English because a plural (–s) and a contracted possessive (–’s) can sound the same when spoken and we’ve either forgotten or are too dim to understand the logical difference. You began your post with a reference to French, so let’s see what the French call it: “un fromage de chèvre”. Singular, possessive. Goat’s cheese. The Grocer’s ‘adjectival’ approach might work when indicating purpose (e.g. you can say “parents evening” without an apostrophe to mean an event that parents are expected to attend) but we’re talking about derivation here. The supposedly American “goat cheese” is as silly in English as it would be in French (“un chèvre-fromage”), suggesting a kind of hideous (and smelly) Lovecraftesque creature that’s part-goat, part-cheese.
Comment by Alistair Dabbs — July 14, 2011 @ 8:39 am |
I love the goat-cheese creature. Torchwood, anyone?
Comment by Freelance Unbound — July 14, 2011 @ 9:57 am |
Did you pay for it with a travellers cheque?
Comment by Mike — August 3, 2011 @ 3:21 pm |
Grrrr…
Comment by substuff — August 6, 2011 @ 12:06 pm |
If you are using it adjectivally, then why not “goat cheese”? There’s no possibility of confusion with a Lovecraftesque hybrid because that’s what the hypen was invented for, as Alistair Dabbs demonstrates (apparently unwittingly). And surely the hybrid would be more Wellsian, as in the Island Of Dr Moreau?
Comment by Tim Holmes — August 9, 2011 @ 3:38 pm |
The “adjectival” argument, although plausible on paper, is wrong, as is easily seen by considering “sheep’s milk”. Whether sheep in this context is singular or plural is still debatable, but “sheep milk” (with “sheep” used adjectivally) sounds obviously wrong to me, and I would hazard a guess that it does also to most native speakers. In my experience, it is usually helpful to find an example where the options that are being compared sound different, because the ear is a remarkably good guide to what is grammatical, that should not be underestimated.
Comment by Alan — October 8, 2011 @ 10:18 pm |
Anyone for breast’s milk ?
Adjectival seems to make the most sense.
Comment by cumfy — June 7, 2012 @ 3:04 pm |
Bit late, I know, but you don’t say “buffalo’s mozzarella” or even “buffaloes’ mozzarella”, you say “buffalo mozzarella”, so why not goat cheese?
Comment by Rita Bailey — September 14, 2012 @ 4:57 pm |
I like cheese
Comment by kosmicklown — November 28, 2012 @ 2:28 am |
I tend to 3). I note that rather than get tied up in all this, Private Eye turned what had been Pedants’ Corner (eliciting a lot of ‘it’s an adjective’ letters) into Pedantry Corner. At my mag, I decided that a body called, wait for it, the Association of Chief Executives of Voluntary Organisations should be generally described as the chief executives organisation Acevo. I like getting rid of apostrophes and will fight all-comers to death on this one.
Comment by Peter Collins — January 8, 2013 @ 5:06 pm |
Animate n inanimate…goat’s cheese…plant’s leaves ,john’s car…vs house key , car door…can’t we not apply this rule?
Comment by rahmah — March 12, 2013 @ 3:00 pm |
He he ..i mean can we apply this rule?
Comment by rahmah — March 12, 2013 @ 3:02 pm |
Having just seen “goat’s cheese” on a menu and flinched, I’d say no apostrophe on the basis that anything to stem the rising tide of apostrophe’s (joke) is a good thing.
Comment by paulonbooksPaul — March 17, 2013 @ 11:40 am |
A rising tide? Really? I’ve not noticed one, but it’s interesting to hear you say it. Here’s a story you might like, then, if you haven’t already seen it.
Comment by substuff — March 17, 2013 @ 11:44 am |
I’d go with Rita though….lost sight of the fact that the goat doesnt own the cheese ..he he
Comment by rahmah — March 17, 2013 @ 2:02 pm |
Madam, I salute your pedantry.
After lengthy consideration, I have decided to go with “goat’s cheese”, although I believe there is also a strong case for the adjectival form (“goats cheese”).
Comment by Neil Cross — April 15, 2013 @ 2:59 am |
If we use the source as an adjective and forget about plurals and possessives it simplifies everything and provides a uniform style, e.g.: cow milk cheese, goat milk cheese and sheep milk cheese.
Comment by Sylvia — May 19, 2013 @ 7:31 pm |