A VERY BAD CASE.
The cases of substantives are these: the Nominative, the Possessive or Genitive, and the Objective or Accusative.
The Nominative Case merely expresses the name of a thing, or the subject of the verb: as, “The doctors differ;”—“The patient dies!”
Possession, which is nine points of the law, is what is signified by the Possessive Case. This case is distinguished by an apostrophe, with the letter s subjoined to it: as, “My soul’s idol!”—“A pudding’s end.”
But when the plural ends in s, the apostrophe only is retained, and the other s is omitted: as, “The Ministers’ Step;”—“The Rogues’ March;”—“Crocodiles’ tears;”—“Butchers’ mourning.”
When the singular terminates in ss, the letter s is sometimes, in like manner, dispensed with: as, “For goodness’ sake!”—“For righteousness’ sake!” Nevertheless, we have no objection to “Guinness’s” Stout.
The Objective Case follows a verb active, and expresses the object of an action, or of a relation: as, “Spring beat Bill;” that is, Bill or “William Neate.” Hence, perhaps, the American phrase, “I’ll lick you elegant.”
By the by, it seems to us, that when the Americans revolted from the authority of England, they determined also to revolutionise their language.
The Objective Case is also used with a preposition: as, “You are in a mess.”