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

[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.

[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.

[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'.

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!

[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!

[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.