Lyrics Talk:Istanbul (Not Constantinople)

Is having "Turks" be possesive absolutely necessary? It doesn't list it that way in the Flood liner notes, and it seems unnecessary with "nobody" being possesive. I could be am probably wrong, of course. -Apollo. 20:08, 1 April 2010 (UTC)

I think Turks' is correct grammar. If you switch the sentence up a bit, one might say "It is the Turks' business," which would make sense. The Flood liner notes say otherwise, but TMBG liner notes have never been extremely reliable. DidgeGuy (आ ज) 20:31, 1 April 2010

It's actually because "nobody" is possessive that Turks has to mirror it; it's "the Turks' business" we're talking about. Similar sentences: "nobody's fault but my own" (the word is "my" or "mine", not "me"); "John's book is much shorter than Greg's" (not Greg, who, if compared to a book, would be short in a different way). If there's a lot of words in the middle, I feel like people will just not make the connection to keep that kind of agreement intact, especially since no intuitive speaker/listener would really get thrown off by that. ~ magbatz 20:35, 1 April 2010 (UTC)

All right, I guess that makes, sense, my logic was more along the lines of Turks being almost like an adjective modifying "nobody" (or maybe vice versa) so that only one needed the actual...possesive...mark...like "nobody but the Turks' business," or something, but I can certainly see the error in that line of thinking. It was very blotched in my mind; I was mixed up with case agreement and adjectives. It was sort of a fleeting question I didn't think about. I blame lack of sleep. ;) Thanks for clearing that up, though. -Apollo. 20:46, 1 April 2010 (UTC)