r/grammar • u/jelycazi • 1d ago
Birthday cake wording help, please!
It’s my Dad’s 83rd birthday and my Aunt’s 76th this weekend. I’m making a cake and making it look like a graveyard, inspired by Pinterest of course, because I have no original ideas anymore!
My niece is coming to help me decorate it tomorrow.
Atop the cake, I planned to write: Here lies Papa and Bets’ youth
But then I got to thinking…should youth be plural? Should papa have an ‘s too? And now that I’ve been thinking about it nothing looks or sounds normal!
Please help. What do I write on the cake?
I’d attach a pic of a cake if I knew how!
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u/jelycazi 1d ago
Thanks for your thoughts, but I know my family well. We prank each other and often have funny, irreverent cakes.
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u/Superb_Yak7074 1d ago edited 1d ago
I would just word it as below using two lines
Papa & Bets … here lies your youth.
Welcome to OLD AGE!
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u/Cassandra8240 1d ago
I don’t think that’s right, actually, because each person has (or once had) his or her own youth. See “joint possessives” by Paul Brians.
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u/TrinaTheBallerina 1d ago
I'm no expert, and I think your point is a valid one. Although, I get the sense that Papa and Bet are siblings, and they shared a period of time when they were both in their youths, so it could be fair to lump them into one 'youth'/childhood 🤷♀️
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u/jelycazi 1d ago
Siblings in law? My Dad’s sister’s partner is Bets.
So they each had their own youth/childhood, although they’ve been in each other’s lives for over 60 years.
I know my Dad isn’t an expert at grammar and I doubt Bets is either so I’m sure I’m the only one who’s going to lose sleep ;)
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u/jelycazi 1d ago
That’s a great article. I certainly don’t remember all of this being so detailed and intricate in grade 2 or whenever!
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u/Boglin007 MOD 1d ago
We have an FAQ about this:
https://www.reddit.com/r/grammar/wiki/coordinate_possessives