Among the most evasive birds in the linguistic aviary is the Jocular Gerund. It casts off apostrophes as if it were shedding feathers. It changes its colors from sentence to sentence. Its call is more a snicker than a song. All this fowl play drives professional grammarians to drink. Consider the species:

From The New York Times: “The confirmation precedents forcefully support the propriety of a nominee declining to spell out how he or she would rule on a specific case.”

From The Washington Post, quoting a Washington lawyer: “I can remember discussions at the Law Review, but I don’t remember John being involved.”

From an Associated Press profile of Justice Antonin Scalia: “He also showed there is no danger of him succumbing to the whims of political correctness.”

Tell me: Should the references have been to “a nominee’s declining,” to “John’s being involved” and to “Scalia’s succumbing”? I can give you my own answer without the slightest quivocation. (A yellow-bellied quivocation, for the record, is even more indecisive than a wimple-winged waffle.) Yes! In each instance I would have used the old- fashioned apostrophe “s.” How come? The possessive form simply sounds better to my ear and looks better to my eye, but these birds defy grammatical taxonomy.

Good writers have had it both ways. Flannery O’Connor, for example, wrote in 1955 about a grandmother who “approves of this one’s being a girl.” A year later she wrote to a friend that “I can’t see me letting Harold condense it.”

You will find an extended discussion of this rara avis in Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary of English Usage. The venerable Henry Fowler, granddaddy of all authorities on English usage, had catfits about the “possessive with gerund.” He abhorred it. The late R.W. Burchfield, Fowler’s more tolerant successor, concluded in 1998 that “the possessive with gerund is on the retreat,” but “its use with proper names and personal nouns and pronouns persists in good writing.”

If Burchfield can waffle, you can too. There appears to be no binding rule on the matter. The choice of “a nominee declining” or “a nominee’s declining” is sometimes a matter of emphasis. Even without italics, there’s a subtle difference between, “I can’t imagine his declining” and “I can’t imagine him declining.” Rely upon your ear, and go in peace.

Turning now to another area of raging controversy: Is there a rule that governs the use of “between” and “among”? The usual answer, of course, is that we should use “between” to mark the separation of two elements and use “among” to identify more than two elements. Thus, under the old rule, Uncle Cobb’s Confederate bonds were divided equally between Jeb and Mosby, but Aunt Sara’s sewing kits were split among Agatha, Scarlett and Sue.

Frank Vizetelly, a famed lexicographer of the early 20th century, propounded that usage “rule” as if it were carved in stone. Other authorities have strongly disagreed. The venerable Henry Fowler termed Vizetelly’s rule a mere “superstition.” In 1989 the editors of Webster’s Dictionary of English Usage similarly denounced this “unfounded notion.”

There is general agreement that in such specialized areas as a multinational treaty, the preferred preposition is “between.” The theory is that each signatory treats separately with each of the others. Otherwise, good writers should be guided by their ears. An argument “between” Democrats, Republicans and Mugwumps is sharper than an argument “among” them. Either way, the Mugwumps have lost the race.

James Kilpatrick is a syndicated columnist.