Blogging Tips

Possessive or Just Possessed?

Written by Patti Stafford from Patti Stafford

guinness I have to admit that possessive nouns, plurals and punctuation give me a lot of trouble. I often look at things many times before I decide if it’s correct or not. I’m probably wrong about it a lot. In researching possessives, I’ve looked at several websites, college English textbooks, and high school English textbooks. What I’ve found is that no two books or websites list the rules the same. So, today I want to bring up possessives and ask the readers for their input on the subject as well.

I find differences in American English compared to British English which can make it even more difficult for me and probably others as well, especially those who are not native English speakers. In my mind, English in the UK is, or should be, more proper than American English. One thing that sticks out with me is Guinness Beer posters. Guinness Beer is brewed at St. James’ Gate Dublin. Guinness posters add an (’s) in their spelling of St. James’ Gate, (St. James’s Gate). Both are proper and considered correct, but in my “American English”, the pronunciation would be, “Jameseses” and it just looks wrong to me.

According to the rules, to form a possessive of a singular noun, you simply add (‘s), but it becomes a bit tricky to form the possessive of a plural noun. You add an apostrophe to the noun if it ends with an (s), and add only an apostrophe (‘s) if it doesn’t end with (s).

Examples:

Singular possessive: The traveler’s report.
Plural possessive: These are the travelers’ reports.

Singular nouns as possessives:
Bess = Bess’s, fox = fox’s, business = business’

Plural nouns as possessives:
ladies = ladies’, months = months’, robots = robots’

Proper names that end with ‘s’ form their possessive by adding an (‘s); James’s, Curtis’s, Jones’s, but according to the rules it is proper to just add an (‘) at the end; .

I will admit again that possessive forms do give me a lot of trouble, especially these days when the rules seem to have changed in the last 25 years. Does anyone else run into this problem? Do you think that St. James’s Gate looks odd or were you taught this is correct?

Thanks for sharing your thoughts on the subject.

Written by Patti Stafford from Patti Stafford
Posted on July 6th, 2009 and filed under Writing
Do not forget to subscribe to our RSS feed for updates

7 Responses to “Possessive or Just Possessed?”

Author comments are in a darker gray color for you to easily identify the posts author in the comments

Kevin Muldoon says:

July 6, 2009 at 3:38 pm

My writing has been messed up a little from the differences in American VS British English, and have developed some sort of hybrid system when it comes to correct spelling.

This is a subject that i need to read more into though I always go back to one of the first lessons you learn about grammar in school – that an apostrophe is used when a letter(s) is taken out.

So in your example : St James refers to the place where Guiness is made (I was there last year!) but if I was referring to it it would sound like St. Jameses. You then place a ‘ where the e was removed.

You add an apostrophe to the noun if it ends with an (s), and add only an apostrophe (‘s) if it doesn’t end with (s).

Do you know if the above rule is true in all forms of English?
Patti Stafford says:

July 7, 2009 at 11:31 am

I did find that rule.
My college English book states (verbatim):

1. “Both singular and plural nouns that do not end in an “s” sound form their possessives by adding apostrophe s (’s).”

2. “Singular nouns of one syllable ending with an ’s’ sound are made possessive by adding apostrophe s (’s). Singular nouns of more than one syllable ending with an s sound are made possessive by adding either an apostrophe (‘) or an apostrophe s (’s).”

3. “Plural nouns ending in -s are made possessive by the addition of an apostrophe alone (‘).”

Where St. James is concerned, it’s correct to use St. James’ or St. James’s because it’s a proper noun. It does look odd to me though.

I have two Guinnes posters- both are the image I used here, but one is just the oval logo with no black around it. I feel the need to correct them though, I want to erase one of the S’s.

Wow! You received a lot of comments on your post “American vs. British English”. Being an American by birth (I’m Native American, but I’m also Scottish and British), but being American by birth I would really rather see (and hear) British English.

I am also from the southern states and it’s not the dialects that I find so horrible, it’s the way the language is used. I wouldn’t begin to know how to spell the pronunciation of some of these words. Words like aiggs and worsh (eggs and wash). Although that’s a whole other story.

I personally think words look better with just an apostrophe after an s (s’). And without really realizing it, in recent years, I find myself using British spellings more, i.e. theatre, colour, and I use the letter (z) where a lot of people use (s). I think my UK roots are calling. LOL.

Another thing I didn’t go into, because I wanted to keep the topic a bit simple for feedback purposes, is the plurals of words that end with (x). Complex = complexes (add es), but fox is fox’s. I think that will be another topic though. I believe many of us use the plural form out of habit and not necessarily know how to apply the rules, (speaking mainly of myself here. LOL)

Off topic- the old comment system had a guide for the HTML we could use. Do you have a guide for this one as well? I always find it difficult going from <> to [] and not sure which code to use here, hence why I didn’t even attempt to format this comment.
Milli Thornton says:

July 7, 2009 at 2:03 pm

Having lived Down Under for 25 years, I still get confused about certain words: Is it ‘windscreen wiper’ or ‘windshield wiper’? ‘Life guard’ or ‘life saver’? And which side of the car do I get in to drive? (No kidding! After being Stateside again for over 10 years, I still sometimes walk around to the driver’s side with my husband when he’s planning to drive.)

I keep a copy of “What’s the Rule” by Kathy Sole by my side while writing. Her ruling on possessives for the situation cited above would go with the Guinness sign shown above (St. James’s Gate).

I like using Sole’s guide because she simplifies everything–she even makes it almost fun. She also includes quotes to encourage you in your writing. Here’s the one I saw as I was looking up that rule:

“Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great make you feel that you, too, can become great.”

I bought my copy at http://www.whatstherule.com if anyone wants to check it out.
Patti Stafford says:

July 7, 2009 at 2:31 pm

Ah, I made a mistake and no one has caught it, or you’re being too nice.

I’m just starting to work on my piece about plurals and it dawned on me that the plural of fox IS foxes, while the possessive is fox’s.
There are many foxes.
The fox’s tail.

It’s been one of those days.
Kevin Muldoon says:

July 7, 2009 at 8:32 pm

Patti

With regards to dialects etc, sentence structure is not something that bothers me at all when talking to someone in person but it does when reading an article. Speaking and writing is all about communicating your message to another person (or persons) and I love to speak to people the way they normally would. I’m usually around people who speak the same way as me so it’s kind of refreshing.

However, I hate poor grammar and spelling when reading an article because it makes it incredibly difficult to understand what is being said. Some of the submissions for guest posts on Blogging Tips are examples of this (I have seen myself having to read over a paragraph 2 or 3 times to understand what the author was talking about!).

Sentence structure isn’t necessarily a problem when talking to someone in person though because you can use facial expressions, hand gestures, body language etc to get your point across. You cannot do these things in the written word, which is why good writing helps you get your message across to everyone, regardless of what type of english they speak.

This is why i admire the chinese writing system. China has thousands of different dialiects/languages but everyone can still communicate via the standard chinese writing system. Infact, chinese Ganji is also in Korean and Japanese so chinese people could intepret a lot of text when travelling.

With regards to American vs British English, I don’t think either is right or wrong, they are just different. However, my strange occasional hybrid system is definately wrong and needs to be addressed. Reading so many american books and articles etc online has definately been a factor however I am going to make an effort to address this, not least because the American spelling of certain words seems strange to me. For example : farmacy instead of pharmacy, jewelry instead of jewellery and the use of z in a lot of words instead of s.

I’ve ordered two small writing tips books to help me. One is a basic grammar tips reference book and the other is a writing advice book. My plan is to keep them close to my laptop so that I can refer to them when needed. I’m hoping it will remind me of a lot of basic english rules that I have since forgotten and will make me a better writer.

Milli

thanks for the link Milli. Those laminated guides look incredibly handy. I wouldn’t mind finding something like that for my wall. I currently have a CSS and PHP reference next to my laptop for easy reference. A poster or sheet with grammar rules would be incredibly useful. Time to go hunting on the web for one me thinks!!
Kevin Muldoon says:

July 7, 2009 at 8:34 pm

Patti – Forgot to say, I added the allowed tags rules above the comment area back. Hope this helps

Trackbacks

3 Things I Purchased This Week To Help Me Blog says:

July 10, 2009 at 7:12 am

[...] I mentioned a few days ago in my reply to Patti Staffords post ‘Possessive or Just Possessed?‘, I am actively trying to improve my writing abilities, particularly grammar. Not that I [...]