On 14 July 2013 13:27, Matthew Miller <mattdm@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: > On Sat, Jul 13, 2013 at 08:50:25PM -0700, Joe Zeff wrote: >> On 07/13/2013 05:28 PM, lee wrote: >> >What if the guy was called "Waterfalls"? "Waterfalls' cat"? >> Either that or, "Waterfalls's cat." Both are currently acceptable, >> at least in American English. > > Yeah. Although there's probably no chance of confusion here, Waterfalls' has > some ambiguity because an apostrophe after the "s" indicates a plural > possessive. That is, it could either be a cat belonging to the guy named > Waterfalls, or to the whole Waterfall family, and if you don't know which > the name is, you can't tell from that fragment alone. So usually s's is the > more modern recommendation, but it looks weird and wrong to many > traditionalists. > > > This is kind of off topic, I suppose. :) I like the Strunk and White recommendation which is "'s" for names except those that have historically used "s'". It's also old enough and light enough that you can carry it in your pocket to thwack any traditionalists who disagree. -- imalone http://ibmalone.blogspot.co.uk -- users mailing list users@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx To unsubscribe or change subscription options: https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/users Guidelines: http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Mailing_list_guidelines Have a question? Ask away: http://ask.fedoraproject.org
