DAVID FOLKENFLIK, HOST:
After six weeks of political chaos, everyone has questions, and boy, do I have some. Will the Trump-Vance campaign regain steam? Will the Harris-Walz campaign continue its momentum? And how on earth are we going to make plurals or possessives for their names ending in S and Z? Just where does the apostrophe go? To help guide us through this potential apostro-apocalypse (ph), we're turning to a grammarian. Ellen Jovin is author of "Rebel With A Clause." Ellen, welcome.
ELLEN JOVIN: Hi, David. Thanks for having me.
FOLKENFLIK: All right. For our listeners who need a brush up - which is to say, me - what is the rule?
JOVIN: Well, the rule, first of all, is misleading because it depends on what style you follow. Most...
FOLKENFLIK: Don't patronize me, Ellen. Like...
JOVIN: (Laughter).
FOLKENFLIK: ...I know you believe something somewhere in your heart is right. So what do you think it should be?
JOVIN: OK, well, what I want everyone to do - thank you for this opportunity, by the way - is to just add on the singular possessive - just stick an apostrophe-S on it, and stop all the other nonsense that's going on.
FOLKENFLIK: So for Walz, pretty much everybody is putting the apostrophe-S after his name. But for Vice President Harris, the AP, as I understand it - NPR also - makes her possessive by simply having an apostrophe and nothing else. How is it that some organizations, including my own wayward one, choose to go a different way from your suggested rule?
JOVIN: Are you asking me about the why of this? - because the y is part of my problem with it. I don't like it because you actually pronounce that extra syllable, and I think you might as well reflect it in the writing. People don't say Harris family. They say Harris' family. So just like Walz, you might as well add the apostrophe-S. That is my argument.
FOLKENFLIK: So what's the counterargument?
JOVIN: Well, I've heard various tales over the years. But in general, people I've noticed, that I work with - I teach writing classes, and people do not like seeing S-apostrophe-S. They have a weird thing about it. But my working theory is that people don't like it mostly because AP has exposed them to a dearth of S's (ph). And so when they see it in other parts of their life, they flip out.
FOLKENFLIK: We've just talked about singular possessive, but what about plural? Let's say you had a household of Harrises who owned something. How would you make those Harrises possessive?
JOVIN: I am delighted that you asked me this question because this is where I'm seeing some mistakes on the Internet. Harrises', plural - like the Harrises' dog, the Harrises' house - it's always the same no matter what style you follow, H-A-R-R-I-S-E-S-apostrophe. So the people who are running around adding another S to that and saying that you can sometimes do that depending on what style you're following - no. It's the same for the plural across the board.
FOLKENFLIK: So at no point, in print or in speech, should we see the phrase or hear the phrase Harrises's (ph)?
JOVIN: For the plural possessive, if you see that, it's a mistake.
FOLKENFLIK: Sounds like your rule of thumb is often a rule of ear.
JOVIN: That's true. I also think that some of the style guides - they have too many special cases and exceptions, like, for example, the word Jesus. In some style guides, you put apostrophe-S, and in some, you just put the apostrophe. It creates a club where people who are really initiated into the intricacies of the particular style guide know it, can judge other people who don't follow it. But if it were more consistent, then all of humanity could partake in the enjoyment of forming possessives simply and purely, and it would be much better.
FOLKENFLIK: Simple argument - that's grammarian Ellen Jovin, author of "Rebel With A Clause." Ellen, thanks so much.
JOVIN: Thank you very much.
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