Flash Grammar

[rolanni]

Dear People Who Write or Type Reference Letters:

The possessive of a name that ends in "s" is s'.

Examples are, but are not limited to: Roberts', Sellers', Jones'

The Right Way: I am writing in support of John Roberts' application for head dogcatcher.
In this example, the applicant's name is John Roberts.

The Wrong Way: I am writing in support of John Robert's application for head dogcatcher. In this example, the applicant's name is John Robert.

Thank you for your attention to this matter, and for your continued vigilance against the Hun.

I remain, yr hmbl &c --

She Who Enters Data

Comments

[shana.livejournal.com]

Ummm, ITYM John Roberts for both examples.

[rolanni.livejournal.com]

ITYM means?

[shana.livejournal.com]

Sorry. "I think you mean".

[rolanni.livejournal.com]

Ah. Thank you.

Re the examples, nope. The letter writers might have meant John Roberts in the second example, but they were wrong, wrong, so very wrong.

The name in the first example is John Roberts -- notice the apostrophe properly placed after the s.

In the second example, the apostrophe splits the s from the rest of the name, making Robert the possessive; therefore, the applicant's name is John Robert.

[katmoonshaker.livejournal.com]

And people wonder why I always instruct my children not to let the Huns in when we leave them alone. Harumph!

Of course, I also insist that they not sack Rome either but that's a different story.

[readinggeek451]

I learned that as the possessive of a name ending in S is 's--another s. So the book belonging to John Roberts would be John Roberts's book. Just like the wheels on the bus are the bus's wheels.

[rolanni.livejournal.com]

I see people using this. Young people, who fell under bad teachers. I forgive you; it's not your fault, even though I was taught (by nuns, no less) that s's is an abomination before the lord. And! Had I been confronted with someone who wished to speak in praise of Mr. Roberts's application, it would have been instantly clear to me that the applicant's name was, indeed, Roberts.

[lagilman]

I always defer to House Style.

it saves me agita over the long and short run. And you should always save agita, because someday you might need to give someone a load of it.




(edited, as usual, for typos)

[keristor.livejournal.com]

Actually, not bad teachers unless you include almost all of those in in the first half of last century in the UK, the Times and Guardian newdspapers, and the Chicago Manual of Style (among others). It's one of the areas where there are two schools of thought and neither is 'correct', both are acceptable. Like the Oxford Comma, for instance, adherents of each side will proclaim that the other way is heresy.

However, your second example is indeed wrong by any of the schools (well, it's wrong semantically; Mr. Robert's application is quite valid, but it isn't the same one as either Mr. Roberts' application or Mr. Roberts's one).

(Since the short form of my name ends in "s" I see and hear both Chris' and Chris's possessions, but woe betide those who think that they belong to Chri!)

[readinggeek451]

I was taught by an old-school grammar fiend who retired in 1981, so she'd probably been teaching since around 1930. This was in thee US, not the UK. My last name ends in an S (as did hers), so I get a lot of that, too.

[rolanni.livejournal.com]

And now I'm wondering if this is regional or one of those burps in teaching philosophy, sort of like phoenetics or the comma before the "and" in series. I learned the s' easily 45 years ago, and I clearly remember my reaction when first I was told that s's was "standard" (for the record that reaction was: You have GOT to be kidding me*).

*Digression: Which was similar to the reaction that I had when a copy editor changed all of our "doves" in a fight scene to "diveds". "What the hotel are you doing?" I believe was my question. Her answer was that birds don't belong in bar brawls. She was from the Midwest, I was from the East Coast, and there was definitely a regional thing going. And I still use "dove" for the past tense of dive, because "dived" is too ugly to bear.

[keristor.livejournal.com]

Ah, by 'doves' you don't mean wood pigeons *g*. By default I pronounce 'dove' as 'duv' as the bird, I still have to think to see it as the past tense of 'dive' although I certainly agree with you that 'dived' is dysphonious; I actually prefer the Old English variant of 'diven' (compare drive/driven).

It may be regional, but some of the regions are very small. Like the "Oxford Comma" (before the 'and' of the last element in a list) where traditionally Oxford University has regarded the comma as correct and Cambridge left it out. I managed to get taught both ways with "s'[s]", which is why I am not consistent writing it.

[kk1raven.livejournal.com]

It distresses and distracts me to read things where someone has regularized the irregular verbs. "Dived" is definitely too ugly to bear. "Shined" is another one that disturbs me.

[redpimpernel.livejournal.com]

As someone whose last name ends in s, I often see the bastardization of apostrophe use. Because s's looks funny (James's), they will often then add an e in the mix, as if that will make it less clumsy. (James'es) No, no no. Worse yet, the spell checker on my computer balked at James'es and suggested James's as correct. (Bad spell checker, bad!)

CMOS differs

[johnhawkinson.livejournal.com]

It all depends on your stylebook, I guess.

The Chicago Manual of Style Sec. 7.18 Proper nouns, letters, and numbers (http://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/ch07/ch07_sec018.html) says:

What's your preferred stylebook?

Re: CMOS differs

[rolanni.livejournal.com]

What's your preferred stylebook?

The one that does NOT separate the last letter from the rest of the name.

Read the complaint at the top of the thread carefully.

[amm-me.livejournal.com]

Good luck.

I persevere in using and occasionally instructing in these little niceties, but the text-message generation is winning. I'm a real fossil; I still wince when reading an incorrect "lay," and that battle seems long lost.

Long live the careful speech of the code-mindful Liaden!

[keristor.livejournal.com]

Is that a tribal 'lay', every one of which is correct as in Kipling (http://www.kipling.org.uk/poems_neolithic.htm)?

[hapaxnym.livejournal.com]

I was taught that the only single name to take the s' was "Jesus".

(Unless, of course, one is speaking of the Bach's Joy of Man's Desiring).

Robert's is Just Wrong.

The extraneous "e" (e.g. "Roberts'es") is even Wronglier, since the apostrophe stands in the place of the missing "e" of the Anglo-Saxon genitive.

But since I routinely see abominations like hi's, her's, and do'nt, I fear that the Great War On Grammar is already over.

(On the positive side, my teenage daughter announced triumphantly over the dinner table last week, "Today I figured out exactly when zeugma becomes syllepsis!"

[maddoxa.livejournal.com]

I had to look that up (Zeguma) but I enjoyed it, especially:

“Mr. Jones took his coat and his leave”

and we do have a John Robert here, so the spell checker often has fits. (not to mention all the people looking at "Robert, John, Col" not understanding which is first and last.)

[baggette.livejournal.com]

Amen

another teacher fighting rear-guard action...

[k-10b.livejournal.com]

My daughter's 9th grade English teach has forbidden the class the use of the semi-colon until she has time to teach correct usage. As in, that mighty mark of punctuation is not an exact parallel and substitute for the ",and" connector between two complete clauses.

Amen, sister, amen.

[adina-atl.livejournal.com]

I hate to say this (no, I don't) but nuns aren't the final arbiters on grammar or anything else. Given that St. James's Park (note apostrophe) is older than you, me, or even the nuns, I'd say that the use of s's for name endings has a long, established history.

[reedrover]

Thank you for bringing this up, and thank you for allowing for some amount of commentary in your journal regarding the topic. I appreciate the food for thought and the reminder to be careful of the possessive form of proper nouns.

Pet peeve or bad day?

[muehe.livejournal.com]

Well, i would agree with you.
But i would never have noticed.

[klingonguy.livejournal.com]

Aren't these the same nuns who stopped you from being a Leftie?

[kalimeg.livejournal.com]

Actually, the possessive should be Roberts's and you pronounce it 'robertsez'.

So sayeth the English major.

[pedanther]

Since I don't think anybody's mentioned quite this variation yet, what I remember being taught is that modern names go s's (Roberts's, Sellers's) and that s' is only appropriate for names that... something or other to do with the languages of classical antiquity (Jesus', Moses', Octavius').

Whatever the truth is about the correct possessive of "Roberts", though, it certainly isn't "Robert's".

Sorry

[(Anonymous)]

Hi Sharon,

Sorry to disagree with an old friend, but having one of those names that ends in "s" (Barnes) I get a lot of flak over the proper form of the possessive (not to mention the plural). My ultimate source for English grammar is good ol' Strunk and White. On the first page (as in page 1) of the 3rd Edition of _The Elements of Style_ they say: "Form the possessive singular of nouns by adding 's. Follow this rule whatever the final consonant." The example they offer is "Burns's poems." (I expect the next argument will be over where the second quote goes in the previous sentence.) If S&W say it, I believe it. The Pope may be infallible on theocratic matters, but not out here in the real world. This is doubly true for nuns.

Cheers, Jack

Re: Sorry

[rolanni.livejournal.com]

Strunk and White is of course, in this case, and regrettably, wrong. :)

AP and Chicago Style used to (don't know if they still do) allow s' as long as it was applied consistently, so somebody, somewhere, somehow taught s' widely enough for it to have gained a certain grammatical validity.

I have had to deal with s's, which was house style at the newspaper where I edited copy, so I could, in the instance described above, dealt with Roberts's application perfectly well. My hot button was pushed by the (more than one! extremely educated!) people who apparently think that the possessive of Roberts is Robert's -- notice one s, on the wrong side of the apostrophe, no matter which church you go to on the other matter.

[(Anonymous)]

Normally, I would be indignant right along with you, having been my workmates' proof reader for some time. However, I'm the person who misplaced the preposition in the October group reading suggestion, so I'm afraid I've fallen off my high horse.

US Govt style guides

[(Anonymous)]

FWIW, I went to six different public schools (1960-73) and each taught/used the same possessive rules as Sharon follows.

Also, despite the GPO guide, the US Navy style guide - with selected exceptions particular to "Naval jargon" - uses the AP Style Guide which has nouns ending in "s" receive only the apostrophe, and nouns not ending in "s" receive the apostrophe plus "s" to form possessives. This applies for both singular or plural versions.

On plurals, the use of "ses" and "s's" endings is fashionable, but is an example of verbal laziness. I.e., "Joneses" in lieu of "Jones family" and "Charles's novel" in lieu of "novel of Charles'...". Whether the probably origin is a common belief of many (not all!) newswriters/editors that a majority of readers are barely literate and that news articles need to emphasize plurality and possession, and adopted common verbal usage as a way to compress the text, or whether the verbal usage came after the use in the news is questionable, but irrelevant. Once in public text, according to one of my teachers, the "they write for a living, they should know and use correct English" belief led to adoption into some style guides.

I personally don't know if this is true, but it would explain much.

Brom