The Tyranny of the Majority (to quote samvimes)

[kyra_ojosverdes]

[Poll #731318]

ETA: samvimes says "That's okay, I'm used to holding unpopular opinions" (not that I was, um, crowing about "winning" the poll or anything) and "At least it wasn't a clean sweep."

We are also giggling at the diplomats in the crowd who chose both James' and James's.

Comments

[twfarlan.livejournal.com]

Well, according to the Literacy Online guide available here, "James'" is preferred with "James's" being the less-preferred variant. I don't see why that should be different than "Frank's" or "Mike's," but the one thing you can count on in English is that every rule has an exception.

[marialuminous.livejournal.com]

Take a webquiz on this very topic!

http://www.wecosoft.com/School/English/nouns2.htm

[marialuminous.livejournal.com]

Although I don't like the answer the webquiz gives

[dimfuture.livejournal.com]

According to Strunk and White, any possessive is apostrophe-s, regardless of the last consonant in the word being modified. So James's would technically be correct, even though it seems counterintuitive (to me, anyway).

I have my Chicago Manual of Style on the shelf, but I'm too lazy to pull it down and see what that says.

[tenderhooligan.livejournal.com]

I really reading about this just lately and both 1 and 2 were recommended. I would always go with number 1.

[ivy]

That's what I thought too. James' makes it sound like there are several folks named James, and the book belongs to all of them.

[tigermorph.livejournal.com]

I love Strunk and White.

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

I was taught that the "Name-ending-with-s-apostrophe-no-further-s" form was only used for ancient, classical, and Biblical forms.

So "Moses'" if you're referring to the one in the Bible, but "Moses's", if you're referring to your buddy who happens to be named "Moses."

Other classical forms:

• Jesus'
  
• Socrates'
  
• Judas'
  
• Judah Maccabeus'
  
• Josepheus'
  

[canyonwren.livejournal.com]

Diplomat? Huh?

*shrug* Both James' and James's are technically correct, with the caveat that James' is the preferred form unless you get annoyed by the Biblical thing that someone else mentioned.

[dimfuture.livejournal.com]

"with the caveat that James' is the preferred form..."

According to whom?

Not a challenge, I'm just curious.

[canyonwren.livejournal.com]

You're going to have to wait until I get home to get the source.

[dimfuture.livejournal.com]

Okay. I'll just sit here and stare until then: 0_0

[ladyqkat.livejournal.com]

Actually the correct form is Jim's.

[wcg.livejournal.com]

Either of the first two is acceptable, though the nuns would have whacked me across the knuckles if I'd ever written two letters s on either side of an apostraphe. Therefore I'd write it as James'.

[roguespirit.livejournal.com]

Yeah, that's what I was taught (the double s thing), too. Without being whacked on the knuckles, though. I was quick. (hehe)

[kyra-ojosverdes.livejournal.com]

Except when the James in question never goes by Jim and doesn't like being called Jim... the only person who calls him Jim is his father, highlighting, um, something *cough* public post *cough*

[ladyqkat.livejournal.com]

Ah! In that case it would be Mr. J's.

What is the ANSWER?

[jazzminarino.livejournal.com]

I often have this problem. My name is Jess and my last name ends with S, so I usually end up dropping my last names and going by Jessie to avoid this...

... oh the trouble we go through to avoid the double s!

[kyra-ojosverdes.livejournal.com]

THERE you go!

[yndy.livejournal.com]

Oh good - someone else quoted Elements of Style first.

Now I can just "ditto" this! :)

[marialuminous.livejournal.com]

You say "diplomat", I say "can't make up my dammned mind". Diplomat is a shorter term for it, though.

[dimfuture.livejournal.com]

Seems like you have a lot more results than you have people voting.

I call fraud at the polls. Either that or people are making multiple choices, which is cheating. Cheating, I say!

[dimfuture.livejournal.com]

Well, there's one thing we can agree on, right?

[yndy.livejournal.com]

*grin*

I know there's others... but let's just take it as a sign of the Apocolypse and run! ;)

[kyra-ojosverdes.livejournal.com]

Can we leave my hanging chads out of this, please? It's personal!

[kightp.livejournal.com]

Strunk & White is the Bible.

I was taught that "s-apostrophe" applies only to possisives where the "s" makes the noun plural. "Apostrophe-s" applies to singular nouns that end in "s."

That's also how the Associated Press stylebook does it (and that's the one I used in 20 years as a newspaper reporter, so it's pretty well internalized).

[gryphonwing.livejournal.com]

A long time ago I went with the s-apostrophe-s solution. Because s-apostrophe was for plurals, and my last name (at the time) wasn't PLURAL, dammit.