[greymule]

I generally spell "ingenius" this way: "ingenious." Darn, those pesky typos.

Thanks for the opportunity to save face, Carl, but I must confess that it was not a typo. I knew it, but I still blew it. And for me, that is harder to say than, "Coach, I blew the call."

I am now writing ingenious 500 times.

But I can't find anything wrong with the material you quoted,

"a voice will run
From hedge to hedge about the new-mown mead;
That is the Grasshopper's—he takes the lead."

What's wrong is that the pronoun he refers to Grasshopper, but all we have preceding the pronoun is the possessive Grasshopper's [voice]. I do think it's a bit of an overstatement to say, "Nobody pays attention to that [rule] anymore." It's easy to make up examples in which breaking that rule would be an obvious mistake.

And yes, only people, or objects that can be anthropomorphized (e.g., the sun), should take an apostrophe for their possessive form.

I appreciate the mention of APA. In my work, I often have to take an article or research paper and change it from one style (AMA, Chicago, MLA, APA, etc.) to another. "Translating" from American to British English (and spelling) and vice versa is also a common task.

By the way, explain this sentence: Whistler painted his mother sitting down.
How about the editor to the writer: I shall waste no time in reading your manuscript.

I'd call the first an example of a squinting modifier and the second simply ambiguous syntax.

Thanks for the interesting and informative post.