ConfirmThem

By AndrewHyman Posted in Roberts — Comments () / Email this page » / Leave a comment »

OK, now for a really trivial issue. What do you do when writing the possessive form of a name that ends with the letter "s"?

One of the most thorough discussions of this issue on the web is provided by North Carolina State University. Bottom line: it all depends which expert you ask, so I'm sticking with the extra "s."

The Associated Press Stylebook and Libel Manual recommends that possessives of proper names ending in "s" be formed by adding an apostrophe only (no extra "s"). Thus, in AP style, the possessive of Jones is Jones'. But different style manuals handle this in different ways. The Chicago Manual of Style, which is the manual for book editing, recommends that most possessives of proper names include an extra "s." It makes exceptions for Jesus, Moses, and names of more than one syllable with an unaccented ending pronouned "eez." Thus, Euripides', not Euripides's. The Chicago Manual of Style, rule 6.30:

How to form the possessive of polysllabic personal names ending with the sound of "s" or "z" probably occasions more dissension among writers and editors than any other orthographic matter open to disagreement. Some espouse the rule that the possessive of all such names should be formed by the addition of an apostrophe only. Such a rule would outlaw spellings like "Dylan Thomas's poetry," "Roy Harris's composition," and "Maria Callas's performance" in favor of "Thomas'," "Harris'," and "Callas'," which would not commend themselves to many. Other writers and editors simply abandon the attempt to define in precise phonic or orthographic terms the class of polysyllabic names to which only the apostrophe should be attached and follow a more pragmatic rule. In essence this is, "If it ends with a z sound, treat it like a plural; if it ends with an s sound treat it like a singular." Thus they would write "Dickens', Hopkins', Williams'," but also "Harris's, Thomas's, Callas's, Angus's, Willis's," and the like.

So, I'm sticking with "Roberts's," at least until he tells me to stop. It matches how I speak. Here's a blog discussion of this burning issue.

UPDATE: One of our commenters generously left a link to this zero-tolerance approach to punctuation (keep in mind that pandas eat bamboo shoots!). And, I agree with another commenter that the "Robertses' legal records" definitely should not have an "s" after the apostrophe (although I'm not sure what the penalty should be for noncompliance).