A Word, Please: The trouble with singular nouns’ punctuation

Apostrophes are equal opportunity humiliators. As I wrote recently, apostrophes incriminate less-word-savvy types by popping up in plurals like “We play bridge with the Smith’s” and “He had two different alibi’s” and “She designs company logo’s.”

People who pride themselves on their punctuation skills know these are wrong. They understand that just because a word looks funny with an S at the end doesn’t mean you insert an apostrophe to form its plural.

Instead, you follow the same formula you would for any garden-variety word like “dog” — that is, you just add S, which gives you: dogs, Smiths, alibis and logos.

But even the most apostrophe-savvy people can be vanquished by these tiny daggers of punctuation. Take, for example, the following passage: We met James’ and Chaz’s boss’ sister, along with Max’s boss’s brother.

Linger a moment over those possessives — those wildly inconsistent and counterintuitive uses of apostrophes and S. There’s no way those can be right, right?

Wrong. According to Associated Press Style, they’re all correct —from the lonely apostrophe after James to the apostrophe plus S after Max to the two different ways of forming the possessive of the word “boss.”

It gets worse: On any given day, you could read one news source with possessives written exactly as above, then surf to another news site and see possessives done a bit differently, then open a book and see yet another system. And they’re all correct because different editing styles have different rules for singular possessives ending in S.

“Singular” is key here. Plurals, most of which end in S, have their own rule separate rule: To form the possessive of any plural formed with an S, just add an apostrophe: two dogs’ tails, all the houses’ roofs, four bosses’ jobs, five axes’ blades. Surprisingly simple.

But when the noun’s singular form ends in S, that’s when pretty much anyone can get into trouble. Singulars that end in Z and X throw people, too. But as you’ll see in a minute, they’re easy. It’s those S-ending singulars that are the real demons because they’re subject to different and sometimes conflicting rules.

To form the possessive of a noun that ends in S, AP style has separate rules for proper names and generic nouns. For proper names like James, AP says, add an apostrophe only: He borrowed James’ car. For generics like boss, add an apostrophe plus S: He borrowed the boss’s car. But there’s an exception: When the word that follows begins with an S, use an apostrophe only. Hence: the boss’ sister.

Individual news outlets sometimes adopt their own variations on these rules. For example, the Los Angeles Times does not distinguish between proper and generic nouns. So you could see “boss’s brother” in an AP story and “boss’ brother” in the L.A. Times and both would be correct.

Book publishing leans strongly toward adding that extra S, not just for generic nouns but also for proper names: James’s hat. James’s sister.

And a note of warning for any Strunk and White fans: “The Elements of Style” will tell you that ancient names and those ending with Z or X are special. But that was never a rule outside of William Strunk’s classroom. The rules of modern publishing treat Z and X just like every other letter that isn’t S.

So what’s a careful writer to do? Well, the easiest course, and one suggested by the Chicago Manual of Style, is to simply add the extra S for both generic and proper nouns. “James’s hat is on the boss’s head.” Or you can emulate news media by omitting the S from proper nouns but including it in generics: “James’ hat is on the boss’s head.”

But if you mess up, don’t worry too much about it. Chances are that not even your smartest readers will know the difference.

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JUNE CASAGRANDE is the author of “The Best Punctuation Book, Period.” She can be reached at JuneTCN@aol.com.