Various style guides provide different advise regarding possessives of words ending in "s" or "ess" sounds. Starting in the 1920s, some guides began to call for punctuation that followed pronunciation. For words where the "ess" is pronounced, add only the apostrophe -- Kansas'. If the "s" is silent, add apostrophe + "s" -- Arkansas's. Some guides still make this distinction.
Other guides sought a more consistent approach. They call for adding only the apostrophe regardless of the pronounciation of the final s, x, or z.
In the 2010 edition of the Chicago Manual of Style, the editors reversed course. Now Chicago calls for always adding the apostrophre + "s" regardless of spelling or pronounciation.
Thursday, July 16, 2015
Chovanes's or Cruz's...ITS STILL MINE!
When I was young I learned to just put a apostrophe after the s, when writing the possessive form. However, just now, writing Cruz's seemed right rather than Cruz'. So I looked it up and a posting in Grammerly says this:
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I am not sure if you are having us on with the grammar, Julie, but it's it's not its in the header; it's advice, not the verb advise from the guide; it's pronunciation in the last line, not pronounciation. Furthermore, "Other guides..." onward should be out of the indent.
ReplyDeleteI was kidding on the header Brian -- nice reading!
ReplyDeleteAll the indented text is the article -- none is mine -- but it really is from the Grammerly site...
And, mea culpa, in the non-indented intro text, which is mine, there was this "...just put a apostrophe..." -- not "an apostrophe" and something I didn't catch! (I could fix it through the magic of Internet editing, but best to leave it up for humility's sake.)
Time for a new post -- the dangers of writing about grammar.
Good of you to respond. I haven't seen this site but I do see that the "grammer" in it should have sealed the deal on your intentions.
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