Mr. Apostrophe, I Stand Correcte’d

So, all these years I thought that the name “Chris” was really awesome because in order to show the possessive form of it I believed it was – Chris’ – (dashes used instead of double quotes to emphasize the apostrophe).

Example #1: Chris’ arrogance stunned even me.
Example #2: Was Chris’ second example necessary?

It even extended to my programming.  If I had to write a noun along with a quantity of said noun, I’d always see if if the noun ended in an “s”, if it did then I would only add an apostrophe, if it didn’t then I would add the full apostrophy s.

Example:

if endOfNounEndsWithS(word) then
    word = word + "'"
else
   word = word + "'s"
end if

// bonus code...
if readerCares(thisBlogPost) then
    myArrogance = myArrogance + 10;
else
    myArrogance = myArrogance + 10; // i win either way
end if

Tonight as I was looking around on Facebook I saw the text “Chris’s Wall”.  I was all “Oh Facebook…silly, silly Facebook…it should say “Chris’ Wall”.

Oh dear readers, I was wrong.  I…was…wrong.

Even though there is some debate still on the subject, the overall opinion is that a noun ending in “s” is still appended with – ‘s -.

Example #1: You’d think Chris’s arrogance would subside a bit after being taught a lesson.
Example #2: Not a chance.

I like this comment on the site:

The apostrophe (‘) is the most troublesome punctuation mark in English, and perhaps also the least useful.

So reader, just so you won’t look like a fool in the future, tack on those – ‘s -’s at the end of your possessive nouns.

Thompson out.

Tagged as: software development