Perhaps this is part of Hugh Grant's contract

This isn't the first time that Hugh Grant has been in a film which has caused an apostrophe stir. I remember there being much debate when he was in Bridget Jones's Diary. Some people felt that it should not have been Jones's and perhaps it should be Jone's (of Jone?) or even Jones', which is an accepted, though not necessarily definitive alternative. If you want to know how to make a possessive of Jones, see item 4 of my guide.

Perhaps the last controversy made Mr Grant's agent demand that there be no errant apostrophes in his film titles. His current movie - Two Weeks Notice certainly has no apostrophes in evidence at all! Now, I have not see the movie, so perhaps I am wrong to criticise the title. However, from my interpretation of the words they have used, it appears this is a film where two weeks of the year, two periods of time of seven days in length, become sentient and then notice something. I find it quite difficult to believe that that is really the plot of a movie. A week may be a long time in politics, but it is hardly the stuff of which movie characters are made.

I have come to the conclusion that the film may be about giving advance warning of about fourteen days in duration. In this case, we have to look at weeks and notice as both being nouns. The notice somehow relates to the weeks. So what does it mean? Aha... maybe the notice is somehow of the two weeks in question? Doesn't that mean we need an apostrophe? Are we not headed for the genitive case? (Say "Yes, Ashley. Whatever you say Ashley", believe me it's a lot easier that way.)

In that case, we need to put an apostrophe in... so how about putting it where it belongs, after the s in weeks, since the word two kind of gives it away that the word week is in its plural. Two Weeks' Notice - the notice of two weeks. There, that wasn't that hard, was it?

Now, if everyone can get a pen and alter just 3 posters each, we'll have it fixed in no time.

Click here to see the corrected version.

01 March 2003
Ashley Frieze