Quote:
Originally posted by Atticus Grinch
You have been wrong all this time. "Somers's" is correct. The only non-plural possessives entitled to use the "ess apostrophe" order are "Moses" and "Jesus," and even then it's purely tradition, not grammatical authority. See Strunk & White.
This is a pet peeve. So many lawyers think the "ess apostrophe" goes with any word ending in "s" and not just plurals. The rule says "plurals ending in 's'," and words have meaning, people!
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Right you are, Atticus. I will share with you another pronouncement from my 8th grade English teacher (Mrs. Bickley) that she would repeat to help us remember the rule:
- I don't care how many "esses" are at the end of a word; if it's a possessive, it gets apostrophe + s. (The example she always used was "the glass's rim".)
Also, you can look up accounts of the late Lady Diana Spencer's untimely death and the subsequent funeral arrangements etc., and you will see that news stories write of "the princess's funeral" (or what have you).
