Automattic / Automattic/harper

Should flag attributive nouns used where possessive nouns are standard.

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#3,344 0 comments 0 reactions 0 assignees View on GitHub
enhancement grammar harper-core linting punctuation
Dominant language
Rust
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Description

I came across "**children books**" a few weeks ago and started researching if it was one-off or part of a new type of grammar mistake I hadn't noticed before. My research was inconclusive.

But I just came across this in a YouTube comment:
> Because **children media** is not a blueprint, but an escapism. Same as most other media.

Which looks more like ESL than native English do to the countable "escapism" but I resumed researching and found it's definitely a known type of grammar error:

- [Is it correct to say "I write children books" (not possessive case)?](https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/92362)
- ["children's literature" or "children literature"?](https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/380921)

The irregular plural and regular plural cases should be treated separately as the latter is much more often an omitted apostrophe either as a typo or casual style that drops all capitals and punctuation.

Contributor guide

Open the contributing guide

Research direction

Start by reviewing the existing grammar-checking rules and how they distinguish regular from irregular plurals. Use the examples “children books” and “children media” as initial cases, and verify that standard possessive forms are flagged without incorrectly rejecting acceptable attributive nouns or casual punctuation.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Assessment

Tech stack
rust
Domain
devtools
Issue type
Feature
Difficulty
4/5
Estimated time
3-5 days
Activity status
Quiet
Clarity
Mostly clear
Newbie friendliness
48/100

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