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I see the usage of both 'User Manual' and 'User's Manual' in daily life. I am wondering if both of them are grammatical and idiomatic? If 'User Manual' is grammatical, is 'user' used as an adjective here (rather than possessive pronoun)?

NS.X.
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2 Answers2

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In the phrase user manual, the word user can be described as an attributive noun. The phrase is both grammatical and idiomatic.

User's manual is also both grammatical and idiomatic. Feel free to use either phrase.

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    users' and users manual are also grammatically/semantically "defensible", but they're not so common as your pair (which are about even, in "published" contexts). – FumbleFingers May 20 '13 at 20:35
  • snail, when I was a member of the EL&U community I asked a question whose title contained within "... Jane Austen's fragment ...", but a competent speaker, such RegDwight, dropped the "'s". I'm still wondering what the reason was. –  May 20 '13 at 20:43
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    @Carlo I think that would work as a separate question, but make sure you include the full text: "Meaning of a Jane Austen's fragment* in this letter"* –  May 20 '13 at 21:06
  • snail, I tried asking, but @Fumble commented "possible duplicate of 'User Manual' or 'User's Manual'? The name "Jane Austen" functions as an attributive noun". Thus I deleted the question. Do you have something to add? –  May 20 '13 at 21:51
  • snail, thank you very much indeed. As always, your answers are clear and instructive. –  May 20 '13 at 22:06
  • @Carlo_R.: I don't agree with the "separate question" position - but I don't think you should have deleted the other one. At least you (who asked it), and snailboat see/saw a distinction. Some future visitors are bound to take that position. Even if yours were closed as a dup (by no means certain), some people might have found the answer they were looking for after finding your question first. – FumbleFingers May 20 '13 at 23:59
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It seems to me it should be Users' Manual.

Kind of like the men's room. It's plural. It's not the man's room. And it's possessive. It's not the man room or men room.

Dan
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  • Welcome to Stack Exchange, Dan! This question was asked more than five years ago and already has an accepted answer, so your answer would have to be incredibly good to justify posting it. Once you have sufficient reputation, you will be able to comment on questions to add input. Please take some time to take the tour and visit the help centre. Please check out the newest questions page to answer recently asked questions. – Aric Aug 24 '18 at 13:13
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    @Aric, the fact that this is an old question that has an accepted answer has no bearing on posting a new answer. We actually encourage that, and have a badge for doing a good job at it. We just want to avoid a new answer that duplicates what has been previously said. Dan's answer contributes a different observation, so from that perspective, it's fine. I do disagree with his conclusion, though. Men's room is plural because it is a room shared by multiple men. User's manual is singular because each user gets their own personal manual. – fixer1234 Aug 24 '18 at 17:51