In this week’s edition of The New Yorker, there is an article that includes these two quotes about Larry Summers: “According to a friend of Summers’s, Harvard had wanted . . . Two questions arise from these quotes. First 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?
Second, why is the possessive necessary at all? Why not “friend of Summers” . . .
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