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 web interface at: http://listserv.muohio.edu/archives/ateg.html and select "Join or leave the list" Visit ATEG's web site at http://ateg.org/ To join or leave this LISTSERV list, please visit the list's web interface at: http://listserv.muohio.edu/archives/ateg.html and select "Join or leave the list" Visit ATEG's web site at http://ateg.org/ To join or leave this LISTSERV list, please visit the list's web interface at: http://listserv.muohio.edu/archives/ateg.html and select "Join or leave the list" Visit ATEG's web site at http://ateg.org/