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A stone's throw

Posted by Joseph Read on May 19, 2009 at 18:29

I have always been curious as to the origin of "A stone's throw", and appreciate the forum answers to this as being "a short distance" as in a "throw of a stone". But my question is why the apostrophe is used to make the throw possesive to the stone. Shouldn't it be "a stone throw" instead? After all, we don't say it's "a chip's shot" in golf, or a "short's walk" from here, etc.

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