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He nodded over the fence in our neighbour Mr Clark’s direction.
Or
He nodded over the fence in, our neighbour, Mr Clark’s direction.
Comments
Should it be
He nodded over the fence in our neighbour, Mr Clark’s, direction.
or
He nodded over the fence in our neighbour's, Mr Clark’s, direction.
or
He nodded over the fence in our neighbour's, Mr Clark, direction.
The second two are clumsy, yet in the first one if you leave out the bracketed clause you lose the possessive.
Which is why in this case I would choose to go without the commas!
Or rewrite the sentence and surroundings so that the neighbour is 'named' somewhere else.
He nodded over the fence in our neighbour direction.
How about
He nodded over the fence in the direction of our neighbour, Mr Clark.
*cuts and pastes*
Once arranged, Mum and Dad reclined in their deckchairs, donned their sunglasses and began to read, Mum, a soppy love story and Dad, the newspaper.
No commas. Otherwise you are in danger of calling Mum a soppy love story and Dad the newspaper.
what is correct or are they both OK to use as into 4000 word and do not want to have to change it.
I always start with ", because if you want to change it later it is easier to use Find and Replace to change " to ' than the other way round, which will also pick up all possessive apostrophes etc. (i.e change it's to it"s) which you don't want!
You also need a comma between Hello and John.
I always use single speech marks - habit!
As long as you're consistent, HA, use whatever you've started with.
But that's a useful tip for changing " " to ' ', Heather.