Apostrophes

[rjordan]

Would it be best to stick with one style for as long as I'm writing about this character?

Should you risk the 1-bombs that will greet a change in style of that magnitude?

rj

 

[OliviaM]

I think you should add a disclaimer about it at the beginner of part two. Just to be on the safe side

Should you risk the 1-bombs that will greet a change in style of that magnitude?

rj

WARNING: This work uses the Chicago Manual of Style, 16th edition! Don't 1-bomb me because you are an illiterate boob who can't be bothered to keep up!!!

Yup, looks perfect

 

[EverLux]

WARNING: This work uses the Chicago Manual of Style, 16th edition! Don't 1-bomb me because you are an illiterate boob who can't be bothered to keep up!!!

Yup, looks perfect

It grabs the readers attention, at least.

 

[rjordan]

WARNING: This work uses the Chicago Manual of Style, 16th edition! Don't 1-bomb me because you are an illiterate boob who can't be bothered to keep up!!!

Yup, looks perfect

Yes, that usually wards off 1-bombs...

rj

 

[sr71plt]

Yes, that usually wards off 1-bombs...

rj

It certainly tells them you have a sensitivity to something they can play with about something they probably never would have noticed on their own.

 

[NotWise]

Yup, and I think I used Giles' more than once.

I'm 13 chapters into a story with a main character named Ellis, and all possessives are Ellis'. I can change that going forward, but I'm not going to rewrite anything.

 

[legerdemer]

I don't own the reference, myself, but I found this online:

"Form the possessive singular of nouns with 's.

Follow this rule whatever the final consonant. Thus write,

Charles's friend
Burns's poems
the witch's malice"

http://www.bartleby.com/141/strunk.html

Edit: It's apparently the AP and MLA that prefer just the apostrophe, without the s. But along the lines of what NotWise said, CMoS is the go-to reference for writing non-journalistic writing.

Thanks. Damn, evolution of English style - who'd a thunk it? Now I know. (But may not change...)

 

[Handley_Page]

Banks & Company, brewers to the West Midlands, have produced some really good beer.
And a pint is referred to as "a pint of Banks's, please".

I vote for Giles's, even if it does look strange.

 

[rjordan]

It certainly tells them you have a sensitivity to something they can play with about something they probably never would have noticed on their own.

Never bend over with a target on your ass.

rj

 

[Hypoxia]

Never bend over with a target on your ass.

The basic rule of politics. Often ignored.

 

[sr71plt]

Don't go out of your way to create targets.

 

[Athalia]

Paraphrased from Oxford Guide to English Usage

In British English you would normally add an apostrophe and s to a singular and only an apostrophe after a plural that ends in s;

Bill's book
A girls' school

But singular nouns ending in s should add 's for possessive:

boss's; Burns's poetry; Thomas's

Plurals omit the s

bosses'; the Thomases' dog

But French names that end in a silent s are followed by 's

Dumas's novel

Names ending in -es pronounced -iz are treated as plural and take only the apostrophe:

Hodges'; Moses' [Og's interpretation - but not Giles' that should be Giles's]

Classical names, by convention, use the apostrophe only however they are pronounced:

Venus' Ceres' Xerxes'

But Jesus as a possessive is Jesus' in religious writing and Jesus's in normal references.

That accords fairly well with what I was taught in school. I was taught the rule that if the "s" is actually pronounced, there should be an "s" after the apostrophe; if not, the apostrophe alone is sufficient.


As Ogg pointed out, there is an exception for names from classical and religious literature. But Giles is not such a name, nor is Charles, so the possessives would be "Giles's" and "Charles's."

So, it would be: "Nick and Nora Charles have purchased a new home. Mr. Charles's mother told them about it. The Charleses will move in Saturday. The Charleses' old house is now on the market."

Anyway, that's how I was taught. God knows what they're teaching these days.

 

[sr71plt]

For U.S. Style in the humanities (which includes fiction), they teach the Chicago Manual of Style and I've already cited the CMS rules on this on this thread.

 

[EverLux]

For U.S. Style in the humanities (which includes fiction), they teach the Chicago Manual of Style and I've already cited the CMS rules on this on this thread.

Valid point.
Except the eye roll. It was a little unnecessary*.

*As was my initial word choice

 

[sr71plt]

Valid point.
Except the eye roll. It was a little dickish.

Well, people here tend to be a little thick headed about best practices and their vote in them. So, if you want to weigh in as well, you can take your "dickish" and stick it where the sun don't shine.

I myself thought the "God knows what they're teaching these days" was a little dickish considering what they teach today had already been given on the thread.

 

[OliviaM]

Edit: I thought better of my original comment. Thank you to everyone who's been contributing to this thread. It's been very helpful!

 

[oggbashan]

...

I myself thought the "God knows what they're teaching these days" was a little dickish considering what they teach today had already been given on the thread.

What they teach and what students actually practise can be very different.

For many non-writerly people this whole argument is pointless because they can't use apostrophes correctly even without the problem of a word ending in s.

I give greengrocers a get-out-off-jail-free card. Greengrocers are told that misplacing apostrophes on product signs is a marketing tool. If someone comes into your shop to complain about tomatoe's you are likely to make a sale.

 

[sr71plt]

True, and I suggested in post #24 that it probably didn't matter much at Lit. as long as it was consistent. Either way wouldn't interrupt the read; inconsistency might. Beyond that, the question was what was considered proper, not what those did who didn't consider what was proper. The OP wouldn't have asked if she didn't want to know what was considered proper.

 

[glynndah]

For what it's worth, I would use the "Giles's" variation.

 

[jehoram]

I myself thought the "God knows what they're teaching these days" was a little dickish considering what they teach today had already been given on the thread.

I think she meant that rhetorically. And I'm sure that there is no consistent syllabus for this ... regardless of what the published rules of style are, I'll bet that there are hundreds of teachers who teach their students what they themselves had been taught. That's how these errors get perpetuated in the first place.

 

[sr71plt]

I think she meant that rhetorically. And I'm sure that there is no consistent syllabus for this ... regardless of what the published rules of style are, I'll bet that there are hundreds of teachers who teach their students what they themselves had been taught. That's how these errors get perpetuated in the first place.

Sure there is--and, no, qualified teachers of editing don't just teach their students what their high school English teachers taught them. Editorial courses of study on U.S. style exist in universities in the United States. Editing is a discipline of standards, not willy-nilly "whatever." I went through the program at the University of Virginia--as well as the one on publishing. The Chicago Manual of Style is the universal consistent syllabus authority for editing in the United States. I have no idea why so many of you can't get that through your noggins. The standards exist to take the guess work out of your writing--to help you concentrate on the creative aspects of writing.

 

[rjordan]

Sure there is--and, no, qualified teachers of editing don't just teach their students what their high school English teachers taught them. Editorial courses of study on U.S. style exist in universities in the United States. Editing is a discipline of standards, not willy-nilly "whatever." I went through the program at the University of Virginia--as well as the one on publishing. The Chicago Manual of Style is the universal consistent syllabus authority for editing in the United States. I have no idea why so many of you can't get that through your noggins. The standards exist to take the guess work out of your writing--to help you concentrate on the creative aspects of writing.

The majority of writers probably never see a teacher of editing. So I agree with those who say most of us are taught what our teachers were taught, and the last teacher of record probably was a high school English teacher.

I also don't think standards exist to take the guess work out of writing. Standards usually exist for benefit of the end user...the reader in this case. Editing for publication is downstream from writing so it's often irrelevant to the writer who may never see the edited version. It's never irrelevant to the reader though. They always see the result of editing.

I don't really feel strongly about apostrophes or style manuals so I won't defend what I've said.

rj

 

[sr71plt]

I was giving the advantage of standards to the authors because apparently the authors I was addressing don't care what the standards do for the readers. Those authors seem to think it's all about them.

Beyond that I was addressing a statement that editing isn't taught in school and there is no syllabus for it. It most certainly is taught in the university for those who want to actually be competent editors and call themselves editors and there is underpinning in the United States for the syllabus for education in actual editing--as cited, it's the Chicago Manual of Style and it's taught as the authority everywhere where universities and other schools have course in editing in the United States. You don't become a competent editor just by taking high school English.

So, you aren't really addressing the issue I was. Not really relevant to the post I quoted and responded to. The post I responded to was about training editors, not handing out high school diplomas.

 

[rjordan]

I was giving the advantage of standards to the authors because apparently the authors I was addressing don't care what the standards do for the readers. Those authors seem to think it's all about them.

Beyond that I was addressing a statement that editing isn't taught in school and there is no syllabus for it. It most certainly is taught in the university for those who want to actually be competent editors and call themselves editors and there is underpinning in the United States for the syllabus for education in actual editing--as cited, it's the Chicago Manual of Style and it's taught as the authority everywhere where universities and other schools have course in editing in the United States. You don't become a competent editor just by taking high school English.

So, you aren't really addressing the issue I was. Not really relevant to the post I quoted and responded to. The post I responded to was about training editors, not handing out high school diplomas.

Yes, I see. A parallel is the dirth of teaching in library science. Anyone can get a library card these days, and none of them seem to know there are university degrees in library science. You don't become competent in the Dewey Decimal and Library of Congress systems by osmosis, fer crissakes. Most writers stack their books willy nilly everywhere.

rj

 

[AceStroker]

I've learned two things by reading through this thread:

There is no right or wrong answer for this.

Don't use any character name that ends in S.