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Rover
Hi,
I know that "James' house" and "James's house" are semantically the same, but are they of the same pronunciation?
If not, which one is more commonly used both in spoken and written English?
Thank you!
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Rover
Thank you! But orthographically, it seems a bit confusing because as far as I know after adding plural markers to nouns ending in /s/ or /z/, we generally pronounce them as /sIz/ or /zIz/, such as "bosses" or "losses."
So, shouldn't "James's" be pronounced as /dʒeImzIZ/ and "James'" as /dʒeImz/?
Maybe it should, but you will hear both forms.
If I had a friend called James and I was planning to visit his house, I would say "I am going to Jameses house" (that's my pronunciation of "James' house".
If I knew a family called James and I was planning to visit their house, I would say "I am going to the Jameses house" (same pronunciation as the first).
As you can see, I would pronounce both versions the same way.
Remember - correct capitalisation, punctuation and spacing make posts much easier to read.