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 "iz" 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 "s." 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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