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I was writing an essay describing the floor plan of an art gallery a few months ago. When I wrote:

The diagrams compare the layout of an art gallery’s ground floor as it was in 2015 with its current one.

My then teacher, whom I'm no longer in contact with, annotated my essay with:

Better: The ground floor of an art gallery

I then did some research and found this very useful discussion where a lot of users pointed out that when the modifying noun is inanimate, we should use "of".

Following this rule, I should say "the surface of the table" instead of "the table's surface" and "the ground floor of an art gallery" instead of "an art gallery's ground floor".

However, user mRotten also said that sometimes using "of" can cause structural awkwardness in your sentence, for example, your sentence is longer and the head noun is farther away from the verb.

In my original sentence, "an art gallery's ground floor" sounds more concise than "the ground floor of an art gallery", which even repeats "of". So, which should I follow: the rule about inanimate modifiers or conciseness?

One last thing, I often find "of" inappropriate when the head noun phrase and the modifying noun phrase are rather short, and vice versa. I'd always used this to explain why "Bob's hair" sounds so much better than "the hair of Bob", until I found the discussion linked above. Do you think it's relevant?

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  • Bob is not inanimate, that's why the possessive apostrophe works also in "Your best friend's haircut looks great” Commented Sep 11 at 7:01
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    IMO both work. The preference depends on whether it's informal speech (the former) or formal writing (the latter) Commented Sep 11 at 9:17
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    If I'd received the teacher's comment, I'd simply have asked "Why is it better?" It's not clear to me why. I'd recommend checking directly with them in the future. Note, they said better, not that yours was wrong. Commented Sep 11 at 16:45
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    No, it's absolutely fine. Commented Sep 12 at 8:24
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    I am sceptical that there is any evidence (outside of e.g. some college style guides) that there is, or ever was, a rule of English saying that inanimate or abstract objects cannot take an 's possessive. Commented Sep 12 at 10:44

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Your teacher was right "of the art gallery" is better.

You have two noun phrases each of which is compound. Since the apostophe-s modifier comes before the head noun, using "art gallery's ground floor" creates a long phrase with the head at the very end. It disobeys the "end weight" principle and it creates bracketing confusion (is it "[art gallery's ground] floor" or "[art gallery's] [ground floor]"

This is the "structural awkwardness" that you refer to. In better writing you should attempt to avoid such awkwardness.

But there is no rule that inanimate objects can't have possessives.

The Earth’s surface plays a critical role in the Earth system by interacting with the ocean and the atmosphere source

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  • Thanks for answering! In the discussion, people did mention exceptions to the "inanimate" rule. Maybe your example falls into one of those categories? Commented Sep 11 at 8:36
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    @AnIELTSLearner: We wouldn't normally use either possessive form with things like chair legs or car doors. We just use the "attribute noun" adjectivally. Commented Sep 11 at 10:46
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    I don't think these are "exceptions to a rule" instead I don't think there is any such rule. The choice between apostrophe-s and "of" can't be captured by any such simplistic rule. Commented Sep 11 at 21:19
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    @AnIELTSLearner - a possible reason for downvotes to the answer above is that it dogmatically states that 'Your teacher was right [that] "of the art gallery" is better'. I think that many people will consider that to be a matter of opinion, and indeed, that is a reason gven for votes to close the question (i.e. that it is 'opinion-based'). Commented Sep 12 at 10:16
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    @AnIELTSLearner - who says the majority agree (one 'g')? That's your opinion, not mine. Note: ground floor (two words). An 'explanation' may be that some people have the opinion that avoiding the possessive 's' for inanimate or abstract nouns makes their writing and speech seem more learned, formal or 'grand'. maybe because they were taught it in school. Commented Sep 13 at 7:02

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