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according to William Strunk Jr.
One must "form the possessive singular of nouns by adding 's," even if the last letter in the word is S; therefore, it's Harris's book, not Harris' book. Was Mr. Strunk being pedantic? I have to admit, I am a bit reluctant to add 's to words ending with the letter S, so now I'm doing my best to avoid writing them at all. I know, however, that it's not right to avoid the problem... Can anybody help me out?
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Re: according to William Strunk Jr.
hi,
You are talking about Synthetical Genitive.
This Genitive is formed as follows:
1. singular+'s
eg. My mother's blouse
The teacher's desk
2. plural noun+'
eg. The boys' ball
The parents' bedroom
3. irregular plural nouns+'s
eg The women's society
The children's toys
4. Proper nouns ending in -s usually get only the apostrophe, although 's may also be used, in either case the ending of the noun being normally pronounced /iz/
eg Dickens' novels
Dickens's novels
Have a nice evening,
madox
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Re: according to William Strunk Jr.
Oh, okay. Thank you very much.
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Re: according to William Strunk Jr.
I have seen people say that the 's' should be added for last names and foreign names, so there are different views on the issue. I use it in names where it is an accepted form (St James's Park), but I would say "Dickens' novels".
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Re: according to William Strunk Jr.
So would I be right in saying that it's okay either way? Perhaps, since people seem to be divided on this issue, I should just go with popular usage and reserve using my s's for the accepted forms. Hmm...good advice, good advice.
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Re: according to William Strunk Jr.
AFAIK, we don’t add –s to famous people’s names, though we do pronounce [iz] anyway.
Socrates’ ideas
Dickens’ novels
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Re: according to William Strunk Jr.
Thank you very much for the input.
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