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This is purely about singular nouns, not plural. It is well defined that plural nouns always end in s' (i.e. foxes')

The question is which do you believe is correct for singular nouns ending in "S"

for example Mr. Jones' car is blue OR Mr. Jones's car is is blue

*note Jones's came up misspelled on spell check*

I find this personally frustrating for English class (the only class that cares)
because freshman year my teacher told me Jones' was correct, then sophomore year Jones's is correct, then junior year Jones' is correct, and now Senior year Jones's is correct.

So I'm curious as to what the majority of people here believe.

I'm going to null vote.

Edit

A thanks out there to The Ancient for pointing out some grammatical errors.

This post has been edited by Cloud_Strife510 on 6th January 2007 00:12

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"Have you ever seen a baby do that before?"

s' is the right way. I never had trouble with that. Although I'm still recovering from the whole "its" and "it's" thing.

The problem is that s' used to be considered correct, but no one talks that way. At this point, so many people use the morphology that agrees with speech in writing that "correct" is in the eye of the beholder. I'd like to see someone successfully argue that the s' way is incorrect, though, given that it's what's been taught in grammar classes for decades.

I'd just pick one and stick with it, and if you actually run into a teacher who insists that her way is THE way, you can decide whether to get into a huge debate about linguistics or just roll your eyes and give her what she wants for the term. I'm pretty sure that I usually do the s' way because that's what I was taught in school, but it bugs me.

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I don't know. I don't really care, i just use whatever comes to mind.

So yeah null vote.

Moderator Edit

So, you don't know and you don't care. Why did you post?

This post has been edited by karasuman on 5th January 2007 07:00

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Quote (karasuman)

I'd like to see someone successfully argue that the s' way is incorrect, though, given that it's what's been taught in grammar classes for decades.

I'd argue that it's incorrect. You can say that it's historically been considered correct, but I'll argue that it's illogical, and makes it seem like the singular noun in question is plural. On the other hand, spelling it as s's is more logically consistent with the way all other possessives are formed, AND reflects pronunciation.

So I personally prefer Jones's.

Although, I admit to having a history of rebellion against illogical grammar rules. For example, when quoting people, "I put my ending punctuation outside my quotation marks", unless "The exact quote contains that particular punctuation, such as the period ending this sentence."

And just to make those two quotes technically correct, I actually spoke the following two sentences:
I put my ending punctuation outside my quotation marks.
The exact quote contains that particular punctuation, such as the period ending this sentence.

This post has been edited by Glenn Magus Harvey on 5th January 2007 07:02

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According to The Elements of Style, if the noun is plural, then s', if it is singular, then s's. Mr. Jones's house, the Jones' house. Topic's over.

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Quote (Glenn Magus Harvey @ 5th January 2007 02:02)

Quote (karasuman)

I'd like to see someone successfully argue that the s' way is incorrect, though, given that it's what's been taught in grammar classes for decades.

I'd argue that it's incorrect. You can say that it's historically been considered correct, but I'll argue that it's illogical, and makes it seem like the singular noun in question is plural. On the other hand, spelling it as s's is more logically consistent with the way all other possessives are formed, AND reflects pronunciation.

I guess we have to qualify what we mean by "correct" then. If you're talking about which way is logical or should be used (in our humble opinions), then we're in agreement. Jones's all the way. But if we're continuing in the sense that the original poster meant, which was what his English teachers were telling him in school, there's no way you could claim that the version that has been and still is taught as grammatically correct is wrong.

I doubt that we're ever going to reach the point where s' is considered to be grammatically incorrect. I think it's just going to go the who/whom route. No one is wrong for using whom (I certainly do), but, as a grammatical rule, it's very rarely enforced because so many people simply don't think it's necessary. If you don't like that example because you're a whom-fan (can't blame you), look at ending sentences with prepositions. That used to be considered a hard and fast grammatical rule, but would you rather say "where are you from" or "from where are you" when meeting a new person? Both are correct, but the one that matches the way we actually talk is a little more correct than the stilted-sounding version. In 50 years, I'm betting that s' in the written language will be moving down that path; it will be acceptable, but not mandatory.

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This is one of those things that I always forget. I've had some teachers who are wishy-washy about it and say both are acceptable. Then some wanted Jones', and some wanted Jones's. If I was planning on submitting anything professionally, I'd have to look it up, keeping in mind the country that I'm submitting it for (since it may be a regional thing, too?)


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I had an old signature. Now I've changed it.

I was always told that S's was the correct way to do it, so in school (grammar school) I wrote it like that, but after a while I noticed professional writers writing S' so ever since then (before High School) I've always done S' and I don't really care which is right or wrong, but to me, S' is the way I do it.

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If the last name is Jones the proper way to right it is in fact the Jones's. The apostrophe without the 'S' is used when referring to plural objects. The Smiths' car. The ducks' pond. Unfortunately so many people have been doing it incorrectly for so long that leaving off the 'S' after any 'S' is almost the standard.

Edit

Actually I'm uncertain what to do when referring to The Jones. If it was Mr. Jones it would definitely be Mr. Jones's Car. Since the plural form of Jones is the same as the singular I'm not sure if you make a change to the possessive. Perhaps the plural of Jones is Joneses anyway...Anyway I stand firm behind my first statement, just because the word ends in 'S' does not mean that you leave off the S after the apostrophe. Thomas's understanding of the English language is meager at best.

Actually Cloud, I re-read your post and you have some contraditory statements, you start off with

Quote

This is purely about singular nouns, not plural.

and then proceed to use a plural noun in your example. The Jones are usually a family.
So the bottom line answer to your question is use 's when the noun is singular.

This post has been edited by The Ancient on 5th January 2007 15:01

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The Teacher's Edition of the McDougal Littel English Textbook (Silver Level) verifies the 's way as correct. That's the way I've always been taught to use it, quite possibly by this book itself, since looking at the copyright show it was written in 1989. Thanks CPS budget cuts.

This post has been edited by Gears on 5th January 2007 21:40

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Quote (Elena99 @ 5th January 2007 07:11)

This is one of those things that I always forget. I've had some teachers who are wishy-washy about it and say both are acceptable.

Same here. That gets annoying.

I've always done s's myself, as it looks more correct in my eyes.

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Quote

and then proceed to use a plural noun in your example. The Jones are usually a family.
So the bottom line answer to your question is use 's when the noun is singular.

I did contradict myself, thank you for pointing that out.

It's hard to catch grammatical errors just after writing it, I'll edit my first post.

Thanks again TA

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"Have you ever seen a baby do that before?"

I was under the impression that both were correct, although I was taught s' myself and that's what I've been used to. Oh well, it's all still interesting.

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I once had a teacher who said it was s', so I just always put it like that. No one argued, but sometimes I do accidentally put s's. I don't think anyone really cares unless it's an employer who's looking for someone that's very precise with their grammar or a strict English teacher.

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People that use s's make me want to cry.

Although, people that don't know the difference between your and you're make me want to cry too...

Quote (Tsuzinho @ 6th January 2007 22:05)

People that use s's make me want to cry.

Although, people that don't know the difference between your and you're make me want to cry too...

I totally have to agree with you there. I'm very fussy about my grammar and if I see a mistake made by myself or other people I get annoyed. When people post using poor grammar, I can't help myself, I just can't read it.

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Haha actually I can tell you there are people who say Jones' car. They're posh and live in Britain - like my friend's dad. And they speak Proper English. So if you're wondering why and where it came from then I'm guessing that's the answer.

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Funny, I always thought, Jones's was completely incorrect. But I suppose Americans and English spell things differently, so perhaps they do certain things grammar wise differently as well.

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