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correct punctuation
25 Answers
How would ' Charles's room ' be written on a door ?
1. as above
2. Charles' room
3. Charleses room
1. as above
2. Charles' room
3. Charleses room
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For more on marking an answer as the "Best Answer", please visit our FAQ.LOL I think certain rules must have changed over the past few years.... one of my colleagues decided that a report written by a member of his staff was gramatically incorrect because they had written *its* to mean the possesive pronoun of *it*... He declared that it should be *it's* because if you write the possessive of *Jack* it is *Jack's*.... When I saw said report the errors leaped out into my face but he swore black and blue that he was right... until I showed him the relevant page of the Concise Oxford Dictionary.....
The BBC TV programme 'Balderdash and Piffle' always contains a round where the teams have to provide the correct punctuation. In almost every programme they have to point out that while the form <Charles' room> is frequently used (and, indeed, is widely accepted) it is most definitely wrong. The correct punctuation is <Charles's room>.
Chris's answer
Chris's answer
Both 1 and 2 are perfectly correct. Even when there are three s sounds involved, it is still OK to include them all, though the final one is often dropped. For example, one can write about Jesus' crucifixion or Jesus's crucifixion. With only two letters s involved, you can, for example, write about Keats' poems or Keats's poems.
In the Charles case, exactly the same applies.
In the Charles case, exactly the same applies.
I should perhaps have added above that Sir Ernest Gowers, regarded as an authority on English usage, in his Plain Words, opens the section on apostrophes in names ending in s with the words...
"There is no universally accepted code of rules governing the formation of the possessive case of names ending in s."
He goes on to illustrate the point. From the horse's mouth!
"There is no universally accepted code of rules governing the formation of the possessive case of names ending in s."
He goes on to illustrate the point. From the horse's mouth!