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' cars

A 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 Summers’s name in the
> possessive case - but shouldn't the possessive be Summers' - or didn't it
> used to be?
>

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