The continuing decline of science writing

From a CNN online article about Google Moon Prize:

by A. Pawlowski

".....a company that launches cremated human remains into Earth's
orbit, recently..."

An Earth orbit is not posessive....It should have read simply "Earth
orbit".

I have seen this mistake made by others, also.

Shame on the journalists.....or is it "journalist's"? Our schools are
failing to teach proper English and writing.

M wrote:

From a CNN online article about Google Moon Prize:

by A. Pawlowski

".....a company that launches cremated human remains into Earth's
orbit, recently..."

An Earth orbit is not posessive....It should have read simply "Earth
orbit".

I have seen this mistake made by others, also.

Shame on the journalists.....or is it "journalist's"? Our schools are
failing to teach proper English and writing.

This easily qualifies as the dumbest usenet post of all time.

Oops, I forgot to capitalize usenet. Sorry.

M wrote:

".....a company that launches cremated human remains into Earth's
orbit, recently..."

An Earth orbit is not posessive....It should have read simply "Earth
orbit".

Shame on the journalists.....or is it "journalist's"? Our schools are
failing to teach proper English and writing.

The post would be better titled "The continuing proliferation of
ill-informed but self-assured 'Language is going to hell' laments"...
or possibly "The continuing sci.space.* tradition of condescension to
non-space-obsessives."

There's no authority, nor any conclusive weight of usage, for your "An
Earth orbit is not possessive." I can infer your case for reserving
that for any orbit around the Earth, and "Earth's orbit" for our
planet's path around the sun. But there's very little chance it will
gain widespread acceptance, and no reason at all to take the schools
to task for failing to inculcate it.

Of course, that's only my opinion as a career writer for 35 years,
former HS English teacher and college professor of writing.

Monte Davis wrote:
There's no authority, nor any conclusive weight of usage, for your "An
Earth orbit is not possessive."


All your orbits are belong to us.

Kang
The Klingon Empire

On Jul 2, 10:52*am, Pat Flannery wrote:
Monte Davis wrote:
There's no authority, nor any conclusive weight of usage, for your "An
Earth orbit is not possessive."

All your orbits are belong to us.

Kang
The Klingon Empire

The Enterprise just got back from orbiting Uranus searching for
Klingons, they must have missed you!