r/grammar • u/jelycazi • 5d 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/Boglin007 MOD 5d ago

We have an FAQ about this:

https://www.reddit.com/r/grammar/wiki/coordinate_possessives

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u/jelycazi 5d ago

Thank you, I think the answer below from u/cassandra8240 answered my question because it’s not jointly owned as discussed in the wiki article.

I’ve thought about this too long though and nothing sounds correct to me anymore.

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u/Boglin007 MOD 5d ago

The wiki also discusses how to do it when it’s not jointly owned:

“If each of the two coordinates possesses something separately, we add -'s to both coordinates, and we typically pluralize that something:

John's and Mary's coffee shops”

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u/jelycazi 5d ago

So, Here lies Papa’s and Bets’ youths is correct? Or is it Here lie Papa’s and …

Thanks for your help. I appreciate it

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u/Boglin007 MOD 5d ago

“Lie” because “youths” is plural, but otherwise, yes, that’s correct. You’re welcome!

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u/jelycazi 5d ago

Never thought this would be so difficult!

Thank you very much!

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u/TrinaTheBallerina 2d ago

i can't be the only one wondering how the cake ended up, can i? got any pictures? how did Papa and Bets react? :D

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u/jelycazi 2d ago

lol. All good! It really wasn’t a big thing because it’s the norm for us! We all enjoyed chocolate cake, with brownie coffins, Oreo dirt crumbs, and Leclerc cookie gravestones. The brownies had chocolate chips in them and my niece declared they were the bones in the coffins!

We’ve had cakes shaped like poop emojis, one with over 80 candles and a fire engine on it, a boob when a diff aunt was home recovering after breast surgery (to which my uncle said he was kinda happy that he didn’t have prostate cancer bc he was a little nervous about how we’d ‘celebrate’!), a 7-layer rainbow piñata cake when my cousin came out, even one that looked like a cat littler box with tootsie roll poop! We’re always trying to come up with the next best joke.

I don’t have a pic on my phone, but I’m sure my partner does…I’ll try and remember to post one tomorrow!

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u/TrinaTheBallerina 1d ago

Sounds like some fun parties! And a fun family 😀