use of 's after an accronym or name ending with s

[panosgr]

Hello all,

What is the correct use of 's after an acronym or a name ending with 's'. Do we use just an apostrophe or an apostrophe with an 's?

For example (1), for the acronym RADIUS, do we say RADIUS's or RADIUS' ?

For example (2), for the name Panos, do we say Panos' notepad or Panos's notepad?

Thanks a lot

[panosgr]

anyone any ideas?

[bhaisahab]

anyone any ideas?

Yes, I have ideas. I would write them with s'. Others will almost certainly disagree.

[mmasny]

AFAIK, both are used and I think both are understandable, so there's no problem
I am not a teacher.

[tedtmc]

not a teacher

I would write it as RADIUS's and pronounce it as 'radiuses'.

[panosgr]

but why is there a disagreement?

isn't there a grammar rule that dictates whether names or acronyms ending with s take 's or just ' ?

[bhaisahab]

but why is there a disagreement?

isn't there a grammar rule that dictates whether names or acronyms ending with s take 's or just ' ?

No, there is no such rule.

[Barb_D]

In fact, there is disagreement, but people have agreed to disagree.

I would write James's book and say "Jamesiz." Others would write James' (and i guess say "James."

I would say Joe Jones's house and say "Jonesiz." Others would write Jones'

When it comes to abbreviations and acronyms, I follow the same rule.

RADIUS's as the person above wrote. I would write Panos's.

[Tdol]

but why is there a disagreement?

A language is a hugely complex thing with thousands and thousands of rules and also always changing. English is also a mix of languages to start and has a number of different variants which often have their own rules. There has never been any official body to decide on such issues like L'Académie française, though how much success such bodies have is debatable. There's no correct spelling of color/colour- both forms are used so both are right. The same goes for many other things.

The writer of this post says that style guides have changed their position on the apostrophe issue, and seem to be moving towards simplifying things:

http://www.usingenglish.com/forum/fr...tml#post137190