@nigel - “To err is human; to forgive, divine” - Sigurd was directly quoting the poet Alexander Pope, from his Essay On Criticism (1711), and punctuated it exactly as in the original.
http://www.ourcivilisation.com/smartboard/shop/popea/critic.htm

@Igor Ribeiro - Sorry, but your full stop has separated (the appositive) Heracles from its related noun phrase 'our son'. If you want a full stop, it would need to come after Heracles. This of course could jut be a typo.

@sigurd - I'm of the 'longer pause' school for semicolons, rather than following strict rules. So I wouldn't call your version incorrect, but personally I would use something stronger than a comma here. You have, after all, two equal but related ideas. And I would agree with Rob, it gives you too many commas, not all of which are working at the same intensity. Just read the various versions out aloud to yourself, and see which works best. I go for the version with the semicolon, myself.

@Everybody else - Sorry, this is off topic, but there are some language points, vaguely.

@Hairy Scot - Thanks for visiting my blog, and having a good look round.

Of course we all have our pet peeves - mine include the weakening of the meaning of the word 'awesome' and the use of the expression 'going forward'. That's fine as long as they remain peeves, and I don't start pontificating to others; you just won't hear me using them. (Although I do occasionally write about them.)

I have to confess that when I got the tawse at school, I hadn't realised it was 'a Lochgelly'. In my time I also got the cane (publicly) and at one school they had their own particular instrument: a leather-covered bone. It had a name, but the life of me I can't remember what it was. Ah! I've found it on Google - ferula.

There's an interesting article here - http://www.corpun.com/scotland.htm

The two of us went to school in the days when both corporal punishment and prescriptivism reigned. Thankfully British schools have got rid of the former, and largely of the latter, although in the case of grammar, I admit, throwing the baby out with the bathwater somewhat. Hopefully, they have now found some sort of balance.

There are all sorts of things I believed in then which I don't believe in now, and language rules set in stone is/are (?) one of them. (Help, somebody!)

@Nancy - if you had said in American English, you might have had a point, as this expression seems to grate over there. But in my branch of the English language (BrE), it is an absolutely normal expression. There is an easy answer to most of these questions: if you don't like it, don't use it. But don't criticise others for whom it is standard. I don't particularly like where you put 'truly' in your sentence, but that's your choice.

@porsche - thanks for introducing me to a new word - I'd never seen 'conniption' (mainly AmE) before.

-wards - If you can have skyward/s (which is in the same dictionary), I see no reason why you can't, in theory, have sunward/s.(And in fact it's in the Free Dictionary). Anthony Trollope used the word 'flamewards' in his book, 'John Caldigate'; it's on Google Books.

I found a headline 'Gold flows Londonward' from the NY Times, which turns out to be from 1909 - http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F60C10F73B5512738DDDA10894DB405B898CF1D3

Not so sure about your (un)worthy verbs, though. But in theory why not? We have 'undoable' after all - well, I think we do:'doable' is in the Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary, but not in the Concise.

Why not try them out with your friends and see if they catch on. I wouldn't say it's untryworthy.You might even get yourself into the OED.

It does remind me, however, of a word now current in the UK - jobsworth - for the sort of petty official or employee who refuses your request with the sentence - 'It's more than my job's worth, mate.' - this word was (invented?) popularised by a particular TV programme.

Goofy's examples and descriptions all come from the work of a certain Fries, quoted in MWDEU (p 474). There are couple of things I find interesting here:

nearly all the examples sound more natural to me than the equivalents with (periphrastic) of'', (or 'for' in the case of genitive of purpose)

there are absolutely no examples of the apostrophe being used to denote somebody's derivation. (But I accept that sometimes the place concerned will use it to claim someone as their own)

What is disappointing is that MDWEU talks about periphrastic 'of', but nowhere can I find a list of preferred uses for this. Any ideas, Goofy?

Just for fun I did some googling:

TheCovenant's Ark - You might have some support on this one, Sigurd, especially on religious websites
Ezekiel's Book - ditto, and ditto
Loxley's Robin - 4 hits - but they all turn out to be for a racehorse called 'Loxley's Robin Hood'
Arc's Joan - the only references seem to be to this discussion.

There's an interesting paper on the development of the genitive in English (pdf) from Linguistics-online. Looks right up AnWulf's street. See section 2.2. Just google - linguistics-online.de history of the genitive

Sorry, obviously a typo - tend to argue - but I better correct it before New Reader jumps in.

@goofy - Point taken, although I'd include 'Terry Pratchett's latest book' as possession - Terry Pratchett has a new book out'. But I don't think that really makes any difference to the examples Sigurd gives.

@New Reader - This is a forum to discuss disputes, of course people disagree. And to gainsay is not to disprove. But most of the regulars here, even the ones I disagree most profoundly with, tend to do argue their case constructively. And do their homework first! Still, you taught me a new (to me - BrE) meaning of burn.

@sigurd - I'm not saying they're wrong, but do you really think they sound natural? And when you added the indefinite article in that last comment, they got a whole lot more unnatural to my ear.

Just to add that this wider interpretation of possession is common in ESL/EFL circles and I think linguistics and grammar circles:

http://www.eslcafe.com/grammar/showing_possession04.html

@Sigurd - I too see your point, and part of it is no doubt, as HairyScot said, what we are used to hearing. But I think we also perhaps have to broaden our ideas of possession. Note Priestley said Property OR Possession; he obviously didn't think they were the same thing. Friends, ideas, sense of humour etc I would accept as possession, even though we don't own them. My dictionary includes under 'have' - 'to show a particular relationship', which I think covers friends etc., and grammatically 'have' works here as 'have' for possession.

But I would discount standard descriptions of derivation - I admit the mayor of Loxley might have said, 'And now, Ladies and Gentleman, please welcome Loxley's very own Robin Hood', but we wouldn't factually describe him as Loxley's Robin. And I don't think Jack would be normally described as (for example), Sheffield's Jack, even though he was the town's hero. It only works in certain contexts.

As for your other example,the Book of Ezekiel is, I presume, about Ezekiel,not by Ezekiel, so absolutely no possession there.

And as Anwulf has said, 'of' has all sorts of other functions, for example, composition. My dictionary lists 13 functions of 'of', only with the first of which -'belonging to somebody; relating to somebody' would you be able, I think, to use genitive 's.

Other examples might include: a bottle of wine, a crowd of people, the fourth of July, criticism of the police etc, etc

http://oald8.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/dictionary/of

@HairyScot - 'Glescaranto' - that's a new one on me, although I do remember Parliamo Glesga. But I'm from 'that other city', you know, where the best thing is the train back to Glasgow.

I've only been pressing you on your whereabouts because much of the talk on the 'were/was' post was about current British usage. It is standard practice on many linguistics blogs to declare your language background, but people seem to be rather reluctant to do so here.

For example I would never dream of trying to correct an American or a New Zealander on usage in their countries.

Anyway, as I've said to you on the 'with the exception of' post -Thanks and lang may your lum reek - :)