I've recently had to re-enter the dark ages of technology and actually physically burn some media to CD, in various formats (audio CD, mp3 CD, data CD etc). If that's not bad enough - in a couple of weeks' time* I'll have to use a pen and paper to answer questions on a Computer Science exam. Ridiculous I'm sure you'll agree.
Anyhow, in doing so I found that Windows Vista can't actually burn mp3 CDs that any device can actually use. In searching for a free program that could overcome this, I came across Ashampoo Burning Studio.
It's amazingly simple to use, does everything you could possibly want (even burning Blu-Ray) and is also entirely free! If you ever find yourself burning discs for any reason, go get your copy here.
Xx
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* This has always bugged me. Should it be:
"A couple of weeks time",
"A couple of week's time" or
"A couple of weeks' time"?
As you can see, I'm inclined towards the latter (the middle one just looks horrible), but I constantly come across the first choice in fairly respectable media. Answers on a postcard please. With justification.
Friday, 9 January 2009
Burning CDs
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I would favour the first option, were I to use the phrase, as I don't see the need for a genitive apostrophe. However, I don't see the need for the word time - surely in a couple of weeks is sufficient - to what but time could it refer?
Lovely subjunctive there...though I disagree with your argument. Consider the alternative phrasings:
"A couple of weeks' simmering" - two weeks/weeks' worth of being near boiling point.
"A couple of weeks' thought" - two weeks/weeks' worth of thinking about a problem.
Admittedly the above doesn't work quite as well with the phrase I happened to use "a couple of weeks/weeks' time" in above, but shows what I mean by the general point.
I see Cathy's point, but as the phrase is in common parlance (not that you are 'common',Ina) I, too, would favour "a couple of weeks' time".
Ju's Dad says it's the first option as the weeks don't belong to anything!
Ju agrees with her dad, for the same reason :P
Ina disagrees with Ju and her father for a fairly elementary reason ;)
"Weeks" is the word with the genitive ('possessive') apostrophe. Therefore, weeks would belong to nothing - it would be 'time' which belonged to 'weeks'.
Actually, I believe that 'time' belongs to the complex noun 'couple of weeks' but that's a semantic that isn't relevant to this current point of grammar.
I'd agree with Ju's mum that it's an idiom of sorts, which is probably why it's causing so much fuss. I still stand that it would be ridiculous to end a sentence with two unrelated objects, and that one must belong to the other.
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