Blah punctuation

[elaine]

A couple of days ago, I was at an English lecture (albeit, a really crap one) and the lecturer said that examiners get really annoyed when students get punctuation wrong. Alright that's fine.

But then she said something that really confused me- she said that it should be James's box NOT James' box. The only exception is with Jesus'. The next day in the paper, the title used James'.  I was always taught to use James'. lol confused yet?

I don't fancy annoying the examiner. Which way is correct?

[DrowNz]

she's right.

[Collin Li]

When the vowel is "silent," you put an apostrophe before another "s."

In Jesus, you can hear the "u" sound. In James, you cannot hear the "e." That's roughly how it works. I'm not using the correct jargon, but I hope you know what I mean.

[ed_saifa]

A couple of days ago, I was at an English lecture (albeit, a really crap one) and the lecturer said that examiners get really annoyed when students get punctuation wrong. Alright that's fine.

But then she said something that really confused me- she said that it should be James's box NOT James' box. The only exception is with Jesus'. The next day in the paper, the title used James'.  I was always taught to use James'. lol confused yet?

I don't fancy annoying the examiner. Which way is correct?

hmm.. i thought it was James' like that.I'm going to ask my eng lang teacher.

[costargh]

As if something as technical as that would seriously piss an examiner off that much lol.

[Toothpaste]

These links agree with the lecturer:

http://www.unisa.edu.au/styleguide/text/punctuation.asp#apostrophes

Where a person’s name ends with ‘s’, pronunciation should determine use: eg James’s idea, the Thompsons’ car

Here's one for Jesus:

http://www.stage-door.org/stampact/punc.html

Possessives

    * Always add 's to singular nouns where the s sound is heard (witch's, James's, Alex's) except ancient ones ending in -es and -is (Jesus', Moses', Isis' which should be replaced with the laws of Moses, the temple of Isis forms); also use final apostrophe only in for conscience' sake, for righteousness' sake, and appearance' sake and examples above (six days' work).
    * Double possessives (the woman's son's toy), those with of phrases (a friend of mine's contract), and with quotation marks ("Star Trek"'s central theme is...) should be recast.

Also on wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apostrophe#Singular_nouns_ending_with_an_.22s.22_or_.22z.22_sound
Ctrl+F "James".

[/0]

These links agree with the lecturer:

http://www.unisa.edu.au/styleguide/text/punctuation.asp#apostrophes

Where a person’s name ends with ‘s’, pronunciation should determine use: eg James’s idea, the Thompsons’ car

Here's one for Jesus:

http://www.stage-door.org/stampact/punc.html

Possessives

    * Always add 's to singular nouns where the s sound is heard (witch's, James's, Alex's) except ancient ones ending in -es and -is (Jesus', Moses', Isis' which should be replaced with the laws of Moses, the temple of Isis forms); also use final apostrophe only in for conscience' sake, for righteousness' sake, and appearance' sake and examples above (six days' work).
    * Double possessives (the woman's son's toy), those with of phrases (a friend of mine's contract), and with quotation marks ("Star Trek"'s central theme is...) should be recast.

Also on wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apostrophe#Singular_nouns_ending_with_an_.22s.22_or_.22z.22_sound
Ctrl+F "James".

What does it mean double possessives in phrases should be recast? Does it mean it's simply a bad sentence and you need to rewrite it to make it fit? Bah.

[bec]

i think that's what it means, but it gets a bit awkward either way.
like, you should probably change "my cousin's girlfriend's dog" to "the dog belonging to my cousin's girlfriend" or even split it up and say something like "my cousin's girlfriend has a dog which is...."

there's a grammar thing that's always annoyed me: how do you show possession of something by more than one person? eg. the friend of Sarah and Sally...Would that be Sarah and Sally's friend (this is what i would SAY but written i think it's wrong since it could be interpreted as "Sarah" + "Sally's friend")? Or should you write Sarah's and Sally's friend, which sounds so wrong?