The rule I have always followed I think comes from The Chicago Manual of Style,
which is generally used by Murkin publications, and that is that when making
possessives of words ending in "s," whether to add an additional "s" depends on
whether or not it would be pronounced if spoken aloud. For example, if
referring to one person, you would say/write, "My boss's car is a Mercedes."
If you have more than one boss and you describe their cars collectively, you
would write/say, "My bosses' cars are all Mercedes." "The witness's answer was
false." "All the witnesses' answers were false." And so on.
It would be, "This is Francis's OM-3" because you would ordinarly pronounce the
extra "s" and say "Francisess," not "This is Francis OM-3." But it it were
Piers' OM-3, you wouldn't say it was "Piersesess" OM-3. And if you can get
your hands on it, you can say, "Now it's my OM-3."
This is just how I do it. Others can do it however they like. As an old
running buddy of mine liked to say, "I may not egrammerate too good sometimes,
but, by God, I'm communicable." So, if we can understand what you have
written, you done good. We ain't marking papers here.
Walt
--
"Anything more than 500 yards from
the car just isn't photogenic." --
Edward Weston
-------------- Original message ----------------------
From: "Simon Worby" <simon@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
>
> Piers Hemy wrote:
>
> > "Piers' name already ends in the letter 's', so it is
> > unnecessary to add a further 's' after the apostrophe."
>
> With proper nouns ending in "s" or "z", it is *normally* the case that
> one adds "'s", even though that will result in "s's" or "z's". It is
> less common to just add an apostrophe, though not actually wrong. (See
> Posessive Puzzles in Fowler's Modern English Usage, 1926 -- still the
> bible on English grammar.)
>
> Regards,
>
> Simon
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