Plurals, possessives, and consistencies

[Sinlaeshel]

While waiting for my sister to finish work the other night, I noticed an odd thing in the way this particular store she works at catagorized their departments. One department was "Woman's", another department was "Men's", and a third department was "Kids".

Woman's - Singular possessive
Men's - Plural possessive
Kids - Plural non-possessive

Does this inconsistency seem odd to anybody else?

 

[grande]

Yes. Yes it does. I blame George W.

-------------------------
Just call me Captain Awesome.

 

[CajunCenturion]

==> Does this inconsistency seem odd to anybody else?
Sadly, no. I find such inconsistency to be all too common.

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[AnotherHiggins]

Wow. Were these hand-made signs, or had they actually paid to have them printed up?

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[Sinlaeshel]

These signs were professionally done. Very large, hanging from the ceiling above their respective departments.

 

[AnotherHiggins]

Sad, sad, sad.

I could see an argument being made for either "Men's" or "Kids" being correct (but they should be the same form), but "Woman's" just makes me sad.

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[tgreer]

Woman's

A section for a single woman. Either they have only one adult female customer, or only allow one at time to shop in this department.

Men's

A section for men. Makes sense!

Kids

The "kids" department is where you buy small goats.


In a related pet-peeve: I live in Kansas, and the local Fox Station in their commercials always pronounce "Kansas'" as "Kansasus". It isn't just an isolated instance, but they do it over and over, in every commercial. So very irritating.

Thomas D. Greer

http://www.tgreer.com

 

[SantaMufasa]

Thomas, If the state of Kansas owns something, the correct reference is "Kansas's", pronounced "Kansasus" (if you will). How else would you indicate Kansas ownership?

Now, definitely problematic is the McDonald's worker that called back our order over the microphone, "Three sausage-egg breakfases." Now that is something with which I will take issue.

I parked at a Pharmacy the other day and the blue, metal (very permanent) professionally created handicapped sign indicated "Handicapped Accessable".

Where is the English language headed?

Mufasa
(aka Dave of Sandy, Utah, USA)
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[tgreer]

The plural-possessive of Kansas is Kansas'.

It is pronounced "Kansas".

Another example, in the sentence:

Jesus' followers are known as Christians.

"Jesus'" is pronounced "Jesus", not "Jesusus".

Thomas D. Greer

http://www.tgreer.com

 

[SantaMufasa]

Actually, Thomas, According to Wikipedia (

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style_archive_(punctuation)

) [quoting The Elements of Style], "Jesus" is one of the exceptions to the rule of simply adding " 's ", regardless of the final consonant, to form singular possessives:

Form the possessive singular of nouns by adding 's. Follow this rule whatever the final consonant, except for ancient names ("Jesus'") and forms such as "for righteousness' sake".

Mufasa
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[CajunCenturion]

Rather then try to worry about the ancient names, I would suggest the following rule:

If a proper noun has multiple syllables, and ends in 's', and with the sound of 'ez', then only add the apostrophe to form the possessive.

Both 'Kansas' and 'Jesus' fall under this rule.

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[tgreer]

Since when do you add "'s regardless of the final consonant"?!

Nope. If a noun ends in an s, you add an apostrophe to make it possessive. Thus, the possessive of Kansas is Kansas', not Kansas's.

[But, he argues with himself:]

What about dating the daughter of the boss? Boss's daughter? Hmm, I'd pronounce that "boss-es", which is correct...

Maybe I'm wrong. To my ear, though, Kansas's sounds awful. Perhaps it's the double "s-schwa" sound.

Thomas D. Greer

http://www.tgreer.com

 

[CajunCenturion]

==> Nope. If a noun ends in an s, you add an apostrophe to make it possessive.
Sometimes you do add "'s" to form the possessive, as is the case for "the boss's daughter".

If a noun ends is 's' then if it has multiple syllables and ends in the 'ez' sound, then add only an apostrophe. Otherwise, add 's for the possessive.

Boss only has 1 syllable, so boss's is the possessive.


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[grande]

Well, I just learned a lot. I always thought it would be "Jesusus" followers, or "Kansasus" gas station.

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[grooke]

OK! Let me stir!

I believe that 'Business Analysts' rarely analyse.

They focus on recording what the customer said they wanted and all too often then try to produce this. The result is usually a document with just this type of inconsistency throughout.

Worse still, they get signed off.

One example was a project where the programme was given the same name as one of its sub-projects. All programme documents started with a description of the programme about 4 pages long, which was never read, but just copied from document to document. However, this same text was prepended to the first few documents for the sub-project and in that situation read like nonsense. There were 20 people listed to sign off the document and for two of the wrong documents, they all signed them off. There excuse was that they were in a hurry and there were so many other signees that they just relied on them.

My current project is worse. On one screen there is one word that is used with a different meaning at the top from that at the bottom. Worse still, because it has been signed off, they recognise the problem but refuse to change it; "Put it in the training!"

Gil

 

[SantaMufasa]

Gil, I must say, I have no clue how your post relates to this topic......But it could be just my lack of insight.

I just learned a lot.

My first thought was, "Wait to commit to permanent memory what you just learned."

Although I have utmost respect for John's (CC's) excellent command of rules for use of the English language, I am still very resistant to accepting outright CC's convention suggestion.

Here are my difficulties with the suggestion:

1) The company for whom I do most of my work demands, as a condition of employment, that each worker passes the company's "Precision Writing" course. I am one of the instructors of that course and I must follow the curriculum, which has, as its convention, the rule that I asserted earlier: "Form the possessive singular of nouns by adding 's. Follow this rule whatever the final consonant." They don't even make exceptions for "Jesus" or "Kansas".

The curriculum bases its rules upon academically and industrially accepted sources (such as The Elements of Style and other scholarly, referencable guidelines).

Although I am certainly willing to change (and work for a change in the curriculum on this matter), I must be able to cite a scholarly reference. Unfortunately, " 'Cause John said so," is not adequate basis for my efforts. If John can cite a scholarly, academically accepted source upon which I can base my argument, I'm happy to set the wheels of change (at this organisation) into motion.

2) Verbal (versus written) articulation of "Jesus' followers" or "Kansas' roads" is highly ambiguous. If you say, "Jesus' followers", the listener cannot distinguish whether the phrase uses "Jesus" strictly as an adjective or a possesive proper noun. If one writes (and speaks) "Jesus's followers", there is no ambiguity.

Well, I must go retrieve a granddaughter from school presently, so I must curtail my further assertions until I return. I look forward, however, to finding a scholarly basis for changing my mind.

Mufasa
(aka Dave of Sandy, Utah, USA)
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[Thadeus]

Scholarly enough Dave?

Copy-Editing, The Cambridge Handbook:

"Hart's Rules (39th edn, p. 31) recommend that 's should be used in all monosyllables and disyllables, in longer words accented on the penultimate syllable, and in other longer words where it sounds right; however, the s is usually omitted when the last syllable is pronounced iz.

Chicago Manual of Style:

Q. A friend and I were looking at a poster that read “guys apartment.” I believe it should read “guys’ apartment.” She claims that it should read “guys’s apartment” and that the CMS specifically gives the example of “guys’s” to make “guys” possessive. I looked through every section on possessives and did not find the word “guys’s” or any rule that would make this correct. Some people say “you guys’s apartment”—did I overlook the word “guys’s” as used in the attributive position? (I don’t think I did.)

A. “Guys’s” is acceptable in the way that “youse guys” is acceptable; that is, neither is yet recognized as standard prose, and if your friend can find it in CMS, I’ll eat my hat. Plural nouns that end in s (like “guys”) don’t add another s to form the possessive, e.g., the students’ lounge. “Guys’ apartment” is the standard spelling. If you want to make “guys” attributive, you can get away without the apostrophe, but you might test the idea with a plural noun that doesn’t end in s to see whether the attributive actually works: I doubt you’d write “the women apartment,” so you shouldn’t write “the guys apartment” either. And shame on your friend. It must make you wonder what else she’s capable of.

em-phas-is mine

~Thadeus

 

[r937]

>> Where is the English language headed?

wherever it wants



r937.com | rudy.ca

 

[SantaMufasa]

Sorry, Thadeus, your citations don't quite cut it.

Your "Cambridge..." citation actually works in favour of my assertion. The only portion that may suggest an exception ("...the 's' is usually omitted when the last syllable is pronounced 'iz',") speaks to an aural consideration for a written convention...not a good basis for rules of writing. Additionally, "Cambridge's" assertion is, at best, weak in that they simply confirm a debatable typical occurrence...virtually a matter of choice by their saying it is usual, but by no means a Rule of Writing.

Your "Chicago Manual of Style" citation indicates that you don't quite have a solid handle on the issue. That citation deals entirely with how to properly show possession of a plural noun that ends in "s", such as "guys", "girls", et cetera. No one disagrees that forming a possessive from such requires the simple addition of an apostrophe.

The focus of our discussion, however, is how to properly and consistently show possession by a singular noun that happens to end in "s", such as "Jesus", "Kansas", et cetera.

So far, I must weigh a consistent Rule of Writing from The Elements of Style against a weak recounting of typical behaviour from CMS. As a result, I'm not yet moved.



Mufasa
(aka Dave of Sandy, Utah, USA)
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http://www.dasages.com:

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[CajunCenturion]

The recommendation to only use an apostrophe for multi-syllable nouns that end in an 'ez' sound comes from Warriner's English Grammar and Composition, although I will admit to not having the latest edition.

Here are a couple of sites that will muddy the waters, since they each address this subject, but each with its own twist.

On this page, More About Writing, see the section on poessives, about half way down the page.
On this page, Possessive Forms, the paragraph that begins, "To answer that question about Illinois ..." is worth reading.
This page, from the University of Orgegon, POSSESSIVE NOUNS, also address this subject.

As is often the case, it ultimately comes down to preference.

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