Grammar II: Apostrophes and Possessives
A lot of people seem to struggle with when to use apostrophes. The basic rule is in contraction (isn't) and possessives (Tony's). But there are some tricky rules in the latter case:
For ancient names that end with an "s," you place an apostrophe after the "s":
Jesus'
Augustus'
Aquinas'
For modern singular names, add an apostrophe and an "s":
Tony Jones's blog
For modern plural names, add only and apostrophe (after pluralizing the word or name):
Tony and Julie Joneses' house
Two or more boys: It is the boys' field.
One boy: It is the boy's ball.
For ancient names that end with an "s," you place an apostrophe after the "s":
Jesus'
Augustus'
Aquinas'
For modern singular names, add an apostrophe and an "s":
Tony Jones's blog
For modern plural names, add only and apostrophe (after pluralizing the word or name):
Tony and Julie Joneses' house
Two or more boys: It is the boys' field.
One boy: It is the boy's ball.
posted by tony at 5:24 AM
12 Comments:
it seems like the rules have changed a little over the years - there is not a perfect consensus on the whole apostrophe thing. By the way - hoping that you will hit my favorite - the semicolon before long...
Brian
Yeah, I think I'm with anon on this one. I think that the rules for plural possessives have developed over time.
Still helpful - and strangely interesting(!) - thanks.
Cool...very interesting. I pride myself in my ablility to be grammerically correct most of the times, and knowing the rules enables me to BREAK the rules (the best part)...so this is very cool to know. Thanks.
I'm pretty sure that you can drop the final "s" in contemporary names as well, (ie Tony Jones' blog.)Unless I'm way off, it's like the comma before "and" (ie. Matthew, Mark, Luke[,] and John) - up to the individual.
Ok seriously, who gives a rip? I know you are Mr. PhD and most of the people that respond here are very intelligent, but why get your undies in a bunch over a couple apostrophes. I'm sure if I wrote a few books I would give a rip. I was like WTF man.
McG
tony weren't you the lead singer of a band named Grammatrain? back when you had longer hair?
I miss that band. and others like... idle cure. whitecross.
makes me want to break out my "cross-over-without-taking-the-cross-over" band-decoder-ring to find the christian equivelant of my favorite secular rockstars.
but i digress...
today i will rehang my full-length autographed grammatrain poster on my living room wall and think of tony jones!
i'm interested in the use of the hyphen. without capitalization.
Sometime's I really do'nt know how to use those comma's. Im' thinking they just get in the way of talking to the Jone's.
Grammatrain....c'mon now...is that for real? If so, Mark I think you could do some mega blackmailing Mr. Jone's. I bet he had songs like "Derrida is the Bomb" and "Oh I Want To Be Jerry Falwell"...and probably some mushy love song like "Love Like Copernicus"
We love ya Tony!
I didn't know about the difference between apostrophes on ancient vs. modern plural names. Good to know.
I'm not sure there's a "perfect consensus" on this (or any other grammar issue), but there's a pretty strong one, and it's on Tony's side.
Garner (MAU), Fowler (MEU), and Strunk & White (3d ed.) all say he's correct. I'm 99% sure the Chicago Manual of Style does as well (though I don't have it in front of me).
In fact, Fowler wrote that it was "formerly customary" to add an apostrophe but no 's', but that the custom has now changed.
I note that the Supreme Court insists on saying Congress' instead of Congress's. (They are also hysterical about so-called split infinitives.) I've written to correct them, but apparently they don't listen.
Wow! Have you been reading "Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation" by Lynne Truss? That's why God gave us editors.
The basic principle in Fowler's comments about the possessive singular is to
Write what you say .
There's no need at all to memorize "rules" here. Everyone says "Elvis's mother" so that's what we should write.
These days, most people say "Jesus's", except perhaps in a few ritualistic phrases like "in Jesus' name we pray." Because I myself say "In Jesus's time", that's what I write. For the same reason I write "Archimedes' proof".
Write what you say, and you won't jolt readers with nonsense like "the boss' daughter" -- or "the dog' food dish".
Strunk and White's The Elements of Style is pretty much the be all and end all of grammatical instruction for most great modern authors (Stephen King, Ernest Hemingway, obviously E.B. White), and it recommends using the grammar rules laid out by Tony.
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