October 26th, 2009 / 1:44 pm
Mean
Grammar Lesson: Bridget Jones’s Diary
For my first contribution to Mean Week, I want to address something that bugs the living hell out of me: when attributing singular possessive nouns ending in the letter -s-, nothing changes from the way in which you attribute singular possessive nouns ending in other letters. Just add an apostrophe -s-. That is all. Don’t change anything or do anything differently. This is very, very simple.
For example:
Philip Roth’s novels are boring as fuck.
Ben Marcus’s novels are fun.
You see how I did that?
I did not write: Ben Marcus’ novels are fun.
[Because that doesn't make any sense - Ben Marcus is one dude, not plural dudes.]
I also did not write: Ben Marcu’s novels are fun.
[Because that makes no sense. His name is Marcus, not Marcu.]
Not sure why so many people are incapable of understanding this simple punctuation, but I notice these mistakes occurring all the time — and it drives me bonkers!
Tags: ben marcus, singular possessive
Strunk & White should be mandatory at 10.
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chris, i am guilty of doing this. i have since learned my lesson. thank you.
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October 27th, 2009 / 12:00 amRoss Brighton—
dito. but it’s not true of Jesus, Aristophanes, Soctates, &c
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The standard rule states that you should omit the final ’s’ when adding it would make pronunciation difficult. Examples:
Jesus’
Moses’
Marcus’
In each of the cases, the addition of the terminal ’s’ causes the tongue to slip on the word.
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October 26th, 2009 / 1:53 pmRyan Call—
yeah thats why i was doin it before.
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October 26th, 2009 / 2:02 pmChristopher Higgs—
I think what you have pointed out here is a problem of parole not langue.
By that I mean: when speaking, punctuation dissolves into subjective interpretation – so, what you say might make sense in terms of speech; but with writing, the absence of the -s- following the apostrophe makes no sense. (All Deleuzian multiplicities aside, Jesus is one dude not many dudes – thus singular rather than plural – thus apostrophe -s-.)
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October 26th, 2009 / 2:07 pmNathan Tyree—
I understand. It’s just that punctuation is a guide to Pronunciation. The two are, in a way, married. It is considered correct to write:
Jesus’ shoes were green.
The reason for the special dispensation in this case is one of ease of Pronounciation. As such, the same special status should be given in all cases where the extra ’s’ would cause the tongue to slip. I suppose that we could write jesus’s but say jesus’ and all issues would vanish. But that seems a bit too French.
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October 26th, 2009 / 2:12 pmNathan Tyree—
Of course, maybe I’m being contrarian because it’s mean week
October 26th, 2009 / 2:16 pmdavidpeak—
writing for elocution is so passay
October 26th, 2009 / 2:41 pmMolum Haggis—
Note the possibility of a theological grammar: Jesus is God, God is a trinity, therefore Jesus is a multiplicity.
Also:
1. Marcu’s looks sweet.
2. Beauty always trumps semantics.
3. Q.E.D. Marcu’s is true .
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October 26th, 2009 / 3:49 pmNathan Tyree—
well played, sir
October 26th, 2009 / 6:13 pmChristopher Higgs—
Oh Molum, how it pleases me to see you posit the Deleuzian nature of G-D. Also, you know i cannot argue against aestheticism — you have cornered me. Blast!
October 27th, 2009 / 12:02 amRoss Brighton—
Word
October 26th, 2009 / 3:12 pmalec niedenthal—
dude, chris, you are trying to form a binary between speech and writing here, i.e. privileging writing over speech
in the spirit of mean week, bad move
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October 26th, 2009 / 6:19 pmChristopher Higgs—
Alec, you are right to call me out on the binary — arrrg…it hurt to go there, and I secretly wished no one would notice.
My tail is now between my legs, but I still wish people would do the freaking apostrophe -s-!
October 26th, 2009 / 8:08 pmalec niedenthal—
haha sorry if i seemed jerklike, there. we are all fat, heaving sites for binaries anyway. for what it’s worth, i’ve always done the apostrophe -s- the way you suggest/prescribe, and recently i was convinced that it was the wrong way, but now i feel mildly affirmed and do it how i did it before.
good post. this bugs me to. i think the religious/biblical names are an exception. jesus’ is correct. at least according to strunk & white. and denis johnson. but it is not correct to say jones’ or charles’ or whatever. there the possessive is still always formed by adding apostrophe s. i don’t know why.
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So Roland Barthes’ contention would be Roland Barthes’s contention?
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October 26th, 2009 / 3:50 pmNathan Tyree—
case in point
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chris higgs’ ass is gaping
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October 26th, 2009 / 6:20 pmChristopher Higgs—
hahaha. I think you mean George Clooney’s ass is gaping.
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I agree with Nathan Tyree. Omitting that final “s” is not always incorrect. It wish it WAS so simple as just always adding that last “s” –but it depends on the pronunciation. The Chicago Manual of Style says to do this: ” for Jesus’ sake.” But, in another case, do this: “Jesus’s contemporaries.” So…would you pronounce it “Jesusiz contemporaries”? I have trouble looking at the title of Denis Johnson’s short story collection, Jesus’ Son. How should you pronounce it? Jesus Son? Or Jesusiz Son? If you would say Jesusiz Son, then the title should be Jesus’s Son. This conundrum prevents me from liking the book as much I might otherwise. I know this is sick. Couldn’t he have called it Son of Jesus? (The Chicago Manual of Style recommends you do this if you can’t decide which option looks and/or sounds “right.” Avoid the possessive and use “of.”) But Son of Jesus just doesn’t have the same impact, does it? Maybe Denis Johnson knew this title would fuck with our heads, and that’s why he used it.
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October 26th, 2009 / 3:57 pmNathan Tyree—
I knew there was a reason why I liked you.
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October 26th, 2009 / 7:25 pmClapper—
I was reading this comment without first looking to see who posted it and thinking, “I like this person with their Jesusiz talk. Who is this person?”
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October 27th, 2009 / 12:04 amRoss Brighton—
he couln’t have called it son of Jesus, becuase he’s citng the Velevets – Heroin: “and when the smack begins to run, and I feel just like Jesus’ son/ and i guess but I just don’t know…….”
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Just leave it out. S is the worst-sounding, least pleasant letter in English. The fewer of them, the better. It’s bad enough we have to put them at the end of possesives and plurals. But a plural possessive? That is just too much. No, go for the solo apostrophe. The S will live on invisibly, like a sibilant ghost. Don’t worry, everyone will get it. No one will think you’re illiterate. Most importantly, you’ll have saved the earth from one more nasty S.
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October 26th, 2009 / 11:34 pmce.—
i had a lisp as a child; a couple years ago, i dated a speech pathologist who said my esses were still “slushy;” that’s evidently the real industry term for a slightly lisped ess sound–”slushy.”
fuck esses.
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October 27th, 2009 / 8:58 amDaniel Nester—
Oh Muzzy. Can I hug you? Or, better yet: can I use “sibilant ghost”?
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I might add that the half-life of an irregular verb squares to its usage frequency. That is, uncommonly used irregular verbs will eventually vanish and be replaced with regular verbs. We can see this happening. This is because the rules of grammar, punctuation, etc are not absolutes (like the rules of mathematics); they are not prescriptive, but merely descriptive. As you decry the “mistake” of forming a singular possessive by adding an apostrophe after the ‘s’ you are merely railing against progress. When enough people give up on Strunk and White’s (often irrational) rules, the common “mistake” will become the rule of proper usage.
I love mean week!
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October 26th, 2009 / 6:08 pmChristopher Higgs—
I got no love for Strunk & White, Nathan. My complaint is based on the fact that my name ends in an -s- and it hurts my tiny pink heart when I see it manhandled thusly.
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October 27th, 2009 / 9:55 amNathan Tyree—
Well in your case it is obviously Higgs’s
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October 27th, 2009 / 10:23 amChristopher Higgs—
Nathan Tyree, you contrarian, I think Mean Week is having a negative effect on you.
Can a person actually die from yawning?
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Actually, according to Strunk and White if the word or name is distinctive enough, it merit *not* using another -s–Jesus’ Son, or Moses’ frumunda sheese, for example. You could make the same argument for Bridget Jones, especially when one considers that second -s will take up space on marquees and book covers and so forth.
http://www.bartleby.com/141/strunk.html
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Oh. People already talked about that. Well, I provided a link. And I hate adding the extra -s. Do we pronounce the move Brid-get Jones-es Diary? No. It melds together. Elides. Elision. The language changes.
I neglected to add a comma after White in my previous post. I apologize for the error.
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October 27th, 2009 / 9:43 amMatt Cozart—
“Do we pronounce the move Brid-get Jones-es Diary?”
I actually do. I pronounce it that way every day.
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October 27th, 2009 / 10:18 amChristopher Higgs—
Yes of course I pronounce it Brid-get Jones-es Diary. The diary belongs to Bridget Jones. How is this even a question? If you pronounce it Brid-get Jones Diary you would sound like a goofball, not to mention the fact that you would not be conveying the same information.
Some days I feel like I am living in the Twilight Zone.
Thank heavens for Mean Week.
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[...] Higgs’ post schooled me on the proper use of the apostrophe after singular nouns that end in ’s’ to show [...]
Banes’s peeve. Dropping the possessive s from surnames is a new affectation, like I for me and myself for I. Get used to it.
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