Other Crap

Arkansas House to argue over apostrophes

For the record, this is one place where the spelling Nazis can't get you. No matter how you write it, there is a legitimate style manual supporting you. This is probably the most completely unresolved matter in English orthography.

Some style manuals say that proper singular names ending in "s" always should form the possessive by adding only an apostrophe.

Others say that you should always add "'s" unless the name is an ancient one like Jesus or Moses, in which case the apostrophe alone will suffice.

Still others say that it depends on whether the trailing "s" sounds like an "s" or a "z". (Or in the case of Arkansas, neither of the above.)

The Chicago Manual of Style offers this particularly complicated rule to cover certain exceptions: "Names of more than one syllable with an unaccented ending pronounced 'eez' form a category of exceptions. For reasons of euphony the possessive s is seldom added to such names." As an example, they offer "Xerxes' army."

For what it's worth, the Chicago Manual has another of its persnickety rules to cover the specific case of Arkansas. "For names ending in silent s, the possessive can be formed in the usual way without suggesting an incorrect pronunication." This, of course, is inconsistent with their explanation for Xerxes, which insists that sound and spelling must be linked! (Oh, that euphony!) Consistent or not, their rule means that "Arkansas's" is the correct possessive form. (They give the parallel example of "Descartes's.")