Proper Noun Possessives

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hello, this is Josh from Belgrade, Montana.

Hi, Josh. Welcome to the program. What’s going on?

Well, so I have a question about an ongoing dispute between my fiancé, Liz, and I about the way that I pronounce the possessive form of her name, Liz. For example, I would say, when referring to her job, Liz Job, or her car, Liz Car. I also have a nephew, Alex. I do the same thing, where I say Alex School or Alex Fish. And this just sounds dumb. It’s as if I was saying Grant Carr or Josh Carr.

Because you can’t hear the possessive in there?

Yep, it’s the possessive. She thinks I should pronounce this Liz’s job or Liz’s car.

Okay.

And I think for me where this derives from is the written form where I would write that Liz apostrophe. And that comes from the way that words or names ending in S, you can, some styles dictate that you can just use an apostrophe, others an apostrophe S. So for me, I use just the apostrophe. And when I pronounce it, I just say Liz Carr.

Okay.

So the question is, is he right? Am I right? Are we both somewhat right? Is there a gray area? And you’ve done this all your life then? Did people tell you?

Apparently. It was never brought to my attention until she had a problem with it.

I bet you haven’t done it your whole life. I bet you learned it from books. I bet up until the point when you had somebody point out to you that the apostrophe appeared after the S, after some words that you said Alex’s and Liz’s, Liz’s car, Alex’s school. I’m betting that you taught yourself because it seemed like the right thing to do.

I’m guessing that’s correct, yeah. But we’ve done some Internet research on this, and it’s kind of a split decision about how to do this.

Well, how do you define split?

You know, you can have a split where there’s 50% on each side, and you can have a split where there’s 10% on one side and 90% on the other.

I’d say the latter is more accurate. The Internet likes her method better.

Well, yeah, and Josh, I would like to ask you a few questions about guests arriving at your wedding and people arriving at your wedding. So if you’re talking about the arrival of Liz at your wedding, you would say Liz arrival at my wedding?

Boy, that’s a good one. I think I would actually say Liz’s arrival at the wedding.

Liz’s arrival. And what about Prince Charles?

Yeah, well, that’s another one. We have a few examples here.

Yeah, okay, let’s hear them.

Yeah, be Prince Charles’ arrival. We also, she thinks Charles, to say Charles’ car or Charles’ school is acceptable. Same with names like James or Mercedes. Mercedes school, Mercedes basketball, that doesn’t bother Liz. But for names like Elvis or Alex or Angus, you can’t say Elvis song.

So there are just these idiosyncrasies that we kind of agree on even.

Oh, that’s interesting. And it sounds like maybe part of it has to do with the second word.

Yeah, maybe. We don’t really know. Like you might say Elvis’s house, but Elvis song.

Yeah, maybe. Here’s another path on this. Most people, regardless of what they write, say Liz’s and Alex’s school. Most people. Even people who hyper-correct, they’ll leave out the S sound at the end of those words, in times when they’re not being conscious of their own speech, still say Liz’s and Alex’s. So there’s no completely right answer here.

And I know we’re going to get emails from people going, well, Mrs. Frobisher in the third grade told me, well, you know what? There are people who’ve examined large data sets to look at people’s speech and writing habits. And we know for certain that most people say Liz’s and Alex’s and have over the course of history. And write it that way, too.

Yes. It wasn’t until we became a very, at least in the Anglosphere, became very literate and people started looking really closely at the written language, did they try to really make the spoken language conform a lot more to what they were writing. And that’s often a mistake.

And then there’s so many exceptions on top of that. I mean, it’s sort of an Achilles heel, right?

Oh, right. I think this is a great place for you to compromise because it’s not that much to ask of you, Josh, to pronounce it her way.

No, I know, and I think that you probably just convinced me that that’s the right way. Tell her to translate it as I love you every time you say Liz’s in your own private…

He would say Liz.

Oh, I see. If he comes around to her point of view and says it her way, then she needs to hear I love you every time he does that.

Exactly. I think that’s an apt compromise. I think we can do that.

Right.

Okay, well, great. Well, best wishes to both of you.

Well, thank you very much, and thanks for taking the call.

Okay. Thanks, Josh.

Thanks, Josh.

Bye-bye.

Yep, bye.

We know you’ve got opinions about apostrophes for possession after words ending in S. Let us know, 877-929-9673. Email words@waywordradio.org.