Q: Sometimes I can't tell the difference between an appositive and a noun used as a modifier. For example, would you use a comma after "Emma" in the following statement: "I want to be a good example for my two‑year‑old granddaughter Emma?"

A: The short answer is "no." The correspondent, St. Louis attorney Patrick Deaton, surprised me by knowing about appositives, a subject that most lawyers would not recognize. But his question is not as simple as it may seem. Dictionaries define an "appositive" as an expression that is "essential" to complete the idea expressed in a sentence. If it is, no commas are needed around it.

But that definition is not very helpful. Another way to describe an apposite is that it is so closely related to the word it precedes that the two words seem to comprise a single unit. Thus, "my dog Roscoe," "the color purple," "My son John," "the sport soccer." So "my granddaughter Emma" (no comma) would be correct.

But in the illustration Attorney Deaton provided, the phrase "two‑year‑old" precedes "granddaughter Emma." If the phrase "two‑year‑old" has already defined "Emma," the additional language is considered an adjective that is not essential to the meaning, but merely adds information, so you would need to add a comma before "Emma."

That would made the statement comparable to "My second son, John, rode his bike today," or, "Roscoe, my dog who keeps jumping over the fence, got lost today." Both "John" and "Roscoe" have already been defined as a second son and a dog, so the information following their names is not essential to their meaning.

Q: In your December column, you quoted the comment of a reader who used the sentence, "The TV's stand was broken." That statement is ungrammatical, for one cannot use the possessive case to refer to inanimate things. The reader–and you–should have written, "The stand of the TV was broken."

A: Guilty as charged. Moline attorney Robert C. Shearer, who describes himself as  "very semi‑retired," has stated the traditional rule correctly, and has also provided the correct long  (periphrastic) form. He added that when he admitted to his wife that his grammar no longer comported to common/standard usage, "she politely nodded."

When books on grammar tell their readers to use the short possessive form ('s) only for animate things, they add "usually." That's because the number of exceptions to the rule have been increasing. They have included, for some time, references to time and amount, which use the truncated possessive: "a penny's worth," "a moment's notice," "a week's delay," "this morning's news," and "a stone's throw." Now, for many persons, phrases like "the apartment's size," "the diamond's brilliance," "the computer's keyboard" are acceptable.

The periphrastic possessive can also cause ambiguity. For example, there is no ambiguity in the statement, "the TV's picture is blurry," but if you use the periphrastic possessive, "The picture of the TV is blurry," what exactly do you mean? For clarity, you need extra language: "The picture on the TV screen is blurry."

In addition, even in stricter grammatical times, the rule was often violated by educated persons. Attorney Shearer writes that "A TV's stand" is now fine with me." (Probably most readers would agree and ignore the rule whenever the benefits of brevity and clarity exceed those of propriety.)

From The Mailbag I:

Regarding your recent column about the placement of punctuation in quotations, I often see periods and commas placed outside quotation marks. For example, in the "Economist Magazine" I see statements like the following, "This is not what has been traditionally considered "Trickle down Economics".

 As Chicago attorney Stephen J. Brown is aware, the "Economist Magazine" is published in Great Britain, so the punctuation he cited would be correct. He argues that the British usage makes more sense and wonders whether the 19th century typesetting efficiency had an effect on our habit of tucking the quotation marks in. That explanation sounds reasonable.

From The Mailbag II:

From Scranton, Pennsylvania, At-torney James J. Wilson writes (regarding last month's article on lawyers' practice of adding "Esquire" to their printed names): "Here in Pennsylvania, lawyers refer to themselves and other lawyers as, for example, 'Attorney Smith.'" He adds that teachers aren't identified as Teacher Jones nor are architects called "Architect Smith." So shouldn't lawyers just be called "Mrs., Ms., or Mr.?

(Perhaps, however, lawyers consider themselves more comparable to physicians, optometrists, dentists, and podiatrists, than to teachers and architects.)

Gertrude Block is Lecturer Emerita at the University of Florida College of Law. Her book ,"Legal Writing Advice: Questions and Answers" (William S. Hein & Co., Inc.) was published in December 2004. Ms. Block is also author of "Effective Legal Writing", 5th Edition (Foundation Press), with an accompanying instructor's manual. She is co-author of the "Judicial Opinion Writing Manual" (published by the American Bar Association, 1991).  Send questions to the ISBA Bar News – Language Tips, Illinois State Bar Association, Illinois Bar Center, Springfield, IL 62701, or e-mail her at block@law.ufl.edu.