Giuseppe DiGiorgiö (![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} signor_giuseppe) wrote,@ 2004-05-04 10:56:00 |
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The Lewises' apostrophe
There's a lot of grumbling out there about apostrophes, not the least of which from Stephen Notley's Bob the Angry Flower. I will be passing over th'elementary ideas in that cartoon, so if my readers want an amusing explanaçionne of the possessive/plural rule of apostrophes, they should read there and then come back to me.
Despite Mr. Flower's phrusteraçionnes, mostly I don't encounter people who use th'apostrophe to pluralize words that end in vowels, as much as words that are unusuälly pluralized. For instance, proper nouns ("Madagascar is as big as one and a half California's") or words that are new to English ("I'll have three latté's and a hot chocolate").
Simililar to the California example above, people tend to like to preserve their names*: My best friend's last name is Lewis and he insists that "The Lewis's aren't home right now," tho perhaps technically incorrect, is th'accepted usage over actually following the rule and adding an e: "The Lewises are out looking for free fill." Synce he's arguïng that it's more common, I took the debate to Google and searched for [with the quotes] "Lewises are" and "Lewis's are". I was a bit disturbed that, at press time, when I searched for the former, it asked "Did you mean: 'Lewis's are'?" Along these lines, Microsoft Word spell-czech suggests Lewis's for Lewises. Still, beyond these hiccoughs, I think I was vindicated: There were 193 results for the "Lewises are," and a mere 103 for the "Lewis's Are." Furthermore, the latter included grammatically sound turns of phrase like "Indeed, the high-end homes such as Mr. Lewis's are the ones likely to have stunning views" while any instance of the spelling Lewises counts as a point for me!
And I don't care how many times I see it, I still say it's technically incorrect to use the s' rule for any but the plural. Some people might write "Chris' gorilla is not yet a silverback" but they're just confusing the rule they once learned. For me, the reason we have the s' is for when one does not pronounce the possessive ending. In conversaçionne, anyöne would say "Chris's [KRISS-uz] gorilla isn't even a male," so it's only in writing that one might doubt his instincts. One does not pronounce the possessive ending if a plural ending has already been added, so that is why just th'apostrophe by itself is needed: "Hobbits' houses have round doors." Only Gollum himself would feel a need t'add two full endings: "Hobbits's [HAH-bit-sez] houses are tricksy and false, just like their owners." It used to be that Jesus and Moses were the classic excepçionne: "Jesus' secretary was late... again."; "Moses' back was killing him." I say let's stop giving these patriärchs any special treatment: unless one is writing about the plural of mose or jesu, one should just stick with the rule.
Not that technically correct is good enough for me. Althotreefox was good enough to take me down a peg that in extreme cases, th'apostrophe can be used to pluralize abbreviäçionnes and numbers, I won't be doïng it myself. It's become more of a stylistic choice, but once I become editor of a periödical, I'll insist its** articles talk about "The '90s" and not "The 90's." [I will also insist we not talk about "The '80s" no matter how it's spelt!] I note that th'editors of the New York Times prefer th'apostrophe-as-plural, but those at the Onion are good olde-fashioned sticklers like me! Good company, if I say so myself.
Finally, even I have t'admit that it's hard to write "There're four a's in Antananarivo" any clearer than that, so I'll try t'overlook such instances, even as I opt for something more along the lines of "There're three as in Tananarive." myself.
*This may be why the French almost never pluralize a last name. My host family in Alsace was les Estival not les Estivals (or les Estivaux... More on this later on down the road). Apparently, in French, one does pluralize the grandes familles when discussing their exploits, but I am not at liberty to release any of those names at this time.
**There's prolly enough rants out there about how it's is not the possessive, but the contraxionne, so I'll spare you... for now...
There's a lot of grumbling out there about apostrophes, not the least of which from Stephen Notley's Bob the Angry Flower. I will be passing over th'elementary ideas in that cartoon, so if my readers want an amusing explanaçionne of the possessive/plural rule of apostrophes, they should read there and then come back to me.
Despite Mr. Flower's phrusteraçionnes, mostly I don't encounter people who use th'apostrophe to pluralize words that end in vowels, as much as words that are unusuälly pluralized. For instance, proper nouns ("Madagascar is as big as one and a half California's") or words that are new to English ("I'll have three latté's and a hot chocolate").
Simililar to the California example above, people tend to like to preserve their names*: My best friend's last name is Lewis and he insists that "The Lewis's aren't home right now," tho perhaps technically incorrect, is th'accepted usage over actually following the rule and adding an e: "The Lewises are out looking for free fill." Synce he's arguïng that it's more common, I took the debate to Google and searched for [with the quotes] "Lewises are" and "Lewis's are". I was a bit disturbed that, at press time, when I searched for the former, it asked "Did you mean: 'Lewis's are'?" Along these lines, Microsoft Word spell-czech suggests Lewis's for Lewises. Still, beyond these hiccoughs, I think I was vindicated: There were 193 results for the "Lewises are," and a mere 103 for the "Lewis's Are." Furthermore, the latter included grammatically sound turns of phrase like "Indeed, the high-end homes such as Mr. Lewis's are the ones likely to have stunning views" while any instance of the spelling Lewises counts as a point for me!
And I don't care how many times I see it, I still say it's technically incorrect to use the s' rule for any but the plural. Some people might write "Chris' gorilla is not yet a silverback" but they're just confusing the rule they once learned. For me, the reason we have the s' is for when one does not pronounce the possessive ending. In conversaçionne, anyöne would say "Chris's [KRISS-uz] gorilla isn't even a male," so it's only in writing that one might doubt his instincts. One does not pronounce the possessive ending if a plural ending has already been added, so that is why just th'apostrophe by itself is needed: "Hobbits' houses have round doors." Only Gollum himself would feel a need t'add two full endings: "Hobbits's [HAH-bit-sez] houses are tricksy and false, just like their owners." It used to be that Jesus and Moses were the classic excepçionne: "Jesus' secretary was late... again."; "Moses' back was killing him." I say let's stop giving these patriärchs any special treatment: unless one is writing about the plural of mose or jesu, one should just stick with the rule.
Not that technically correct is good enough for me. Altho
treefox was good enough to take me down a peg that in extreme cases, th'apostrophe can be used to pluralize abbreviäçionnes and numbers, I won't be doïng it myself. It's become more of a stylistic choice, but once I become editor of a periödical, I'll insist its** articles talk about "The '90s" and not "The 90's." [I will also insist we not talk about "The '80s" no matter how it's spelt!] I note that th'editors of the New York Times prefer th'apostrophe-as-plural, but those at the Onion are good olde-fashioned sticklers like me! Good company, if I say so myself.Finally, even I have t'admit that it's hard to write "There're four a's in Antananarivo" any clearer than that, so I'll try t'overlook such instances, even as I opt for something more along the lines of "There're three as in Tananarive." myself.
*This may be why the French almost never pluralize a last name. My host family in Alsace was les Estival not les Estivals (or les Estivaux... More on this later on down the road). Apparently, in French, one does pluralize the grandes familles when discussing their exploits, but I am not at liberty to release any of those names at this time.
**There's prolly enough rants out there about how it's is not the possessive, but the contraxionne, so I'll spare you... for now...
