How would you write the possessive form of a quoted word? When I tell what a nickname for an object or person is, I put it in quotes (single marks as opposed to double marks to distinguish it from dialogue, which I know is probably heavily non-standard, but I digress) the first time it's mentioned and don't the rest. But I'm not sure how I should write it in possessive form. Here's the sentence below. As you can see, I have it with a single mark in front of it with two individual marks after it.
I would ask the @big soft moose what he prefers. But seriously, in this case, there is no need to quote "The Moose". Essentially, it's not a nickname, it's the plane's name. Just use it as a proper noun. i.e. the Moose's four Pratt & Whitney
No, assuming it's a C-17, that's its model name. Planes, especially commercial ones, are given names. For example, the 747 that was blown up as Air India Flight 182 was named Emperor Kanishka. It works the same way as ships. It might be a Nimitz-class aircraft carrier, but its name is USS George Washington, not Nimitz. You would not put "USS George Washington" in quotes.
Yeah, the plane's official name is C-17 Globemaster III, but Moose is an unofficial nickname given to it by flight crews, same as the F-16 Fighting Falcon being referred to as the Viper, the F-35 Lightning II as Fat Amy, and the B-52 as the BUFF or Big Ugly Fat F***er. And just to reiterate, I only quote it the first time it's used. After that, it's not.
I figure if you're calling the plane The Moose, as opposed to "the moose", the capitals indicate it as proper noun, however informal, thereby dispensing with need for quotation marks. If used as dialogue, you have "that name is Moose's", not "that plane is Moose"'s, so better to go with "The Moose's" if you must, but the issue can be more easily solved by removing the "" from the nickname. Even without the complication you're talking about, I'd suggest this anyway. It puts me in mind of some ass using air quotations when speaking, not cool, and something my colleague told me to stop doing when I'm saying I'm working from home.
Codenames and nicknames aren't the same thing, though. Codenames are official, nicknames aren't. The USS Enterprise (CV-6) was nicknamed "The Big E" and "Lucky E" by the crew and "Grey Ghost" and "Galloping Ghost" by the Japanese because it was reported sunk twice. None of those names were used by the US Navy in any official capacity.
It doesn't matter who gave it the nickname, or whether it's a nickname or a codename. There's no rule that distinguishes them. And just look - you're naturally quoting the crew nicknames using double quotes, not single quotes. But whatever, it's your writing, do whatever you want.
It occurs to me that if they are on the plane you could just say “ the engines” without naming it, then introduce “ the moose” as a nickname somewhere where it doesn’t need a possessive the first time incidentally the PW in PW2000 stands for prat and Whitney so you don’t need to say that twice
Chicago Manual has a section on this in particular (7.29 in 17th edition). If you were using italics, you put an apostrophe-S on it in Roman. That's allowable. If you're using quotes, their advice is to basically write around it. Change the sentence so that you avoid the possessive. They say the same thing with possessives of names with apostrophes in them. For example, this should be written around: Whataburger's employees earn more than McDonald's's employees.
in the lord of the rings the reason tolkien says things like "the bow of legolas" and "the sword of legolas" is that hes avoiding writing legolas's
Seems to me, you only need the quotation marks the first time you introduce the character. The quotation marks tell the reader, "This guy's given name is Will, but everyone calls him 'Tripod.'" After that, it's just, A shadowy figure emerged from the hangar. With a shock, she recognized Tripod's gait. No one else on base walked with his left arm to the ground like that. As a reader, it would drive me crazy if you kept up the quotation marks around the nickname. I doubt I'm speaking only for myself. As for the name of the airplane, as with ships, standard practice (if it's not rude, crude, and completely uncultured these days to cite standard practice) dictates it should be rendered in italics. So you'd get . . . called out to her over the muffled whine of The Moose’s four Pratt & Whitney PW2000 turbofan engines. This raises the question, should you also italicize the quotation mark and the possessive s? I don't, because IMO that implies they're a part of the name. Arguably, that one's a style choice. Whatever you do, be consistent. EDIT-- Italics for the names of ships, aircraft, etc., is still the standard. See Chicago Manual of Style, Section 8.117.
Or using traditional/Chicago Manual style, put USS George Washington like that, in italics. It'd be the same for an unofficial, non-christened name for a craft.
Yep. But the OP seemed to insist he had to have the quotes and rejected every suggestion, so I thought I'd just leave him to it.
There's no dialogue to distinguish from here. Not according to P&W. Companies redundantly name products all the time. The F in F-150 stands for "Ford," but everyone including Ford still calls it the "Ford F-150." But with that said, that was a goof on my part because the PW2000 is the commercial version of the engine. The derivative used by the military is the F117. That's what I do. After that, it's their name throughout the narrative no differently than John, Jane, or any other name, and loses the quotations thereafter unless the usage specifically calls for them (e.g., "Why do they call you 'Tench'?" Mandy inquired with a puzzled frown). The military only does the italicizing with ships, though. I've never seen Globemaster III, Super Hornet, or Tomcat italicized this way anywhere. So this is just a case of following their way for subject accuracy's sake. And yeah, I do my best to be consistent first and foremost. Please don't think I'm not grateful for the input, I very much am. Every writer has their own individual style and I'm still building mine.
I'd be inclined to bin off the quote marks. They make things messy and for very little gain. If you absolutely need to quote it the first time, just do so in a way that's not possessive. They called it "The Moose" on account of the way it looked, and its size. Then, later... We flew The Moose's smaller cousin down to Guam and I couldn't get my mind off Las Palmas.
