I find myself desperately wanting to form possessives of names ending in “s” the same way I do with any other names. E.g., just as I would write “Plato’s idea” I want to write “Socrates’s idea.” That’s even how it sounds, motherfuckers! Why in heaven’s name would I not treat it like any other name? What perverse impulse led someone to propose inventing an entirely new and unnecessary rule for such cases? And yet there’s so much pressure to write “Socrates’ idea.” Everywhere I turn I see the awful vision of style guide writers slowly shaking their heads and frowning at me. And yet! The other day, I noticed that no less an institution than the New York Review of Books was forming possessives of names ending in “s” the sane way. Is this the permission I need to start living my life the way I want?
{ 2007 09 07 }
Paul | 07-Sep-07 at 11:24 am | Permalink
Things are even more complicated than that, aren’t they?
I remember reading somewhere authoritative that possessives involving *ancient* names ending in “s” are formed without the extra “s” and pronounced without the extra “s” sound. So “Socrates’ snub” is pronounced “Socrates snub”. Modern names ending in “s” are properly formed by adding the extra “s” *and* pronouncing the extra “s”: so “Rawls’s theory” is pronounced “Rawlses theory”. (Most philosophy writing on Rawls uses the “Rawls’s” construction; my advisor was invariably against it, for reasons that were never made clear to me.)
Chris | 07-Sep-07 at 12:51 pm | Permalink
WTF?!? I did not know that.
All of this goes to show that no matter how little credit I give the world, it always turns out to deserve even less credit than I gave it.
alif sikkiin | 07-Sep-07 at 1:12 pm | Permalink
Chicago Manual of Style, 6.24:
“The general rule for the possessive of nouns covers most proper nouns, including most names ending in sibilants….”
The examples: Kansas’s; Burns’s poems; Marx’s theories; Berlioz’s opera; Ross’s land; Texas’s; Dickens’s novels; etc. etc.
But:
“Traditional exceptions to the general rule for forming the possessive are the names Jesus and Moses: in Jesus’ name Moses’ leadership.” (6.26)
and
“Names of more than one syllable with an unaccented ending pronounced eez form another category of exceptions. Many Greek and hellenized names fit this pattern. For reasons of euphony the possessive s is seldom added to such names: Euripides’ plays; Demosthenes’ orations; Xerxes’ army…”
Anne | 07-Sep-07 at 1:18 pm | Permalink
It’s always been my understanding that this is a matter of preference. I.e., it’s optional, and something where each newspaper is free to set their own house style.
This is from the grammar book I used at a very, very traditional elementary school in the early ’80s. I tend to go ‘s with just about everything (singular, plural, singular with s ending), since I think it’s clearer. I don’t always pronounce the final s, or, I sometimes kind of pronounce it under my breath.
Paul | 07-Sep-07 at 1:18 pm | Permalink
There you go.
Chris | 07-Sep-07 at 2:37 pm | Permalink
This is so liberating. For some reason I got it into my head that “-s’s” wasn’t very common. And then that started to influence my own reactions and I began to feel that my official preference looked wrong.
Huh.
g | 05-Aug-08 at 12:02 pm | Permalink
jameses’ car or james’s car??