Arnold Zwicky has an interesting piece on tolerance of variation at http://158.130.17.5/~myl/languagelog/archives/001133.html.



I recommend it, along with 'most anything else Zwicky writes.



Herb



-----Original Message-----

From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Jan Kammert

Sent: 2009-10-12 21:49

To: [log in to unmask]

Subject: Re: Two possessive questions



I teach middle school.  Last year an angry parent talked to me about a similar issue.  She said something like, "How can I help my daughter if you're not teaching the one right way?"  



I felt as if she was going to take her frustration to the principal, and I went to talk to our department head.  The department head said something like, "It depends what style manual you're using."



I felt relieved that I wasn't going to be called on the carpet.  I thought this student needed to focus on organizing her thoughts over the details of punctuation, but the mom disagreed.



 

--------- Original message from Spruiell, William C <[log in to unmask]>: ---------





     From informal polling of my students over the years, Ive

gotten the impression that most were taught *a* rule for punctuating

plural possessives, but very few were told that styles can differ, and that a

form like bosss (used as a genitive singular, not a

mistaken form for a simple plural) could be judged correct in one publication

but not another.  Im a bit worried that some of the authors of state

standardized tests dont know there are multiple styles, either. --- Bill Spruiell   From: Assembly for the

Teaching of English Grammar [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Dick

Veit

Sent: Sunday, October 11, 2009 10:10 PM

To: [log in to unmask]

Subject: Re: Two possessive questions Geoff,



Style manuals adopt different conventions for use of ...s' and ...s's.

My preference is the same as The New Yorker's: The only time an

apostrophe alone is added is following a plural s. So it's:the car's driver

the cars' drivers

the bus's driver

the buses' drivers

Mr. Smith's car

the Smiths' cars

Ms. Jones's car

the Joneses' carsA simple rule to teach students

is that if you add an additional &quot;iz&quot; sound to form the possessive,

you add 's. If no additional sound is added to form the possessive, you

add just an apostrophe.



Dick Veit



On Sun, Oct 11, 2009 at 2:49 PM, Geoffrey Layton <[log in to unmask]> wrote:First

[question] involves the formation of the possessive with a proper name ending

in &quot;s.&quot; The writer adds &s to

Summerss name in the possessive case - but shouldn't the

possessive be Summers' - or didn't it used to be? To join or leave this LISTSERV list, please visit the list's

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