I have lots of friends in Oklahoma. I go to Oklahoma once a year for a conference. I love Oklahoma. I just didn’t realize until I was researching local rules for a new case we have there that while most states have STATUTES which govern their states, Oklahoma appears to have STATUES. This is a perfect example of something spell check wouldn’t catch and why you need to actually read everything before it is published or distributed.
A reader asked me to address possessives with a proper name. I mentioned it in an article early on (see Apostrophail!), but we will delve into it here.
The first rule–the most important thing to remember when working with surnames (a person’s last name)–is do not change a person’s name. You can’t add an apostrophe before an “s” when the surname ends in “s.” For instance, do not make the name “Andrews” possessive by putting the apostrophe between the “w” and the “s.” That is changing the spelling of Andrews. A person’s name is the most personal thing they have. Don’t mess that up! So here are some tips for making surnames plural and possessive.
To make most surnames plural, you add an “s.”
That means more than one Smith went to the party. Where the surname ends in s, x, ch, sh, or z, you should add es to make the name plural.
However, if adding es makes the name hard to pronounce, just use the s.
As for possessives, to make most surnames possessive, add an apostrophe and an “s.”
For these surnames that are plural and possessive, make them plural by adding an “s” and then add an apostrophe to make them possessive.
Where surnames end in “s,” to make them possessive, pronounce the word. If you say the extra “s,” you add apostrophe and “s.”
You would pronounce it “Joneses,” so you add the apostrophe and “s.” Where the surname ends in “s” and making it plural adds an extra syllable that makes it awkward to pronounce, add only the apostrophe.
You would not pronounce it “Andrewses,” so you only add the apostrophe. Where you are talking about a surname that ends in “s” and you want it plural and possessive, make it plural first and then follow the rules on making it possessive.
You make Jones plural by adding “es” because it ends in “s,” but adding apostrophe and “s” after that would make it difficult to pronounce (Joneseses) so you just add the apostrophe.
Again, the main thing to remember is not to change the basic spelling of a person’s name. Start with their name spelled correctly, and then figure out how to make it plural and/or possessive.
Hopefully this is helpful. Don’t upset a person by misspelling their name. Possessives and plurals aren’t difficult if you think about the base word you are trying to change.
On a road trip last weekend, a friend spotted this sign in the women’s restroom. Periods need to be used to separate sentences so the message is clear. Periods ARE important (and so are puns)!
Ah, the news stations and the headline ribbons. This was shared with me by a friend and as I am leaving today for a quick rOAd trip, I thought it was appropriate to share with you. Happy Friday!
A friend sent this one to me. Sometimes leaving important words out in the interest of saving space can completely change the meaning.
Image credit: iqoncept / 123RF Stock Photo
I keep seeing the same mistakes over and over with misusing words that are similarly spelled or are forms of other words and cause confusion. I’ll try to make it more clear to make it easier to choose the right word.
Accept and Except – accept is to take or receive; except is to exclude.
Affect and Effect – affect is to influence or to change; effect is the result or impression or to bring about.
Choose and Chose – choose means to select; chose means you have already selected.
Ensure and Insure – ensure means to make certain; insure means to protect against loss.
Gibe and Jibe – gibe means a sarcastic remark or to scoff at; jibe means to agree.
Its and It’s – its is the possessive form of it; it’s is the contraction for it is or it has. This is particularly confusing because most possessive forms use the apostrophe, but just remember if you cannot replace your word with “it is,” then you use “its.”
Know and No – know means to understand; no means not any.
Loose and Lose – loose means not bound or to release; lose means to suffer the loss of.
Their and There – their means belonging to them; there means in that place.
Your and You’re – your means that it belongs to you; you’re is the contraction for you are. This one is misused by most of the people I see on Facebook who are teens or preteens and even some young adults and makes me question how they are teaching this in school.
I will have to print this list out for my grandchildren so I don’t get the urge to comment on their Facebook status to change it for them.
I hope the some of the confusion is cleared up. Are there words that are confusing to you? Comment below or email me at [email protected].
Placeholders have a place–just make sure when you are proofreading that you check to make sure those placeholders have been replaced by what is supposed to be there. Otherwise, you end up with something like this newspaper headline.
A friend recently forwarded me a question about the first sentence in a brief for a state Court of Appeals that they wanted to make sure was correct. The sentence was (which I have changed to protect her client):
There is nothing specifically on point in the Gregg Reference Manual, but I did find a couple of places on the Internet where the question was answered with the example of “M.D.” In that case, for singular possession, you add “s” after the apostrophe, i.e., Jim Jones, M.D.’s diagnosis. The most prevalent use of what would be “Jim Jones, Esq.’s” is on LinkedIn–certainly not an expert in the grammar area–but makes the most sense and follows the example for M.D. I think the proper sentence would be:
The easiest answer is to reword the sentence:
OR
It was a great question and something that at first blush seems simple, but when you really think about it, it wasn’t quite so easy.
Today is the one year anniversary of the Proof That Proofreading Blog! Thanks for all the support! Here’s a Grammar Giggle about the importance of punctuation.
I’m not the easiest guy in the world to get along with. So when our anniversary rolled around, I wanted my wife to know how much I appreciated her tolerating me for the past 20 years. I ordered flowers and told the florist to enclose a card that read, “Thanks for putting up with me so long.”
When my wife got the delivery, she called me at work.
“Where are you going?” she asked.
“What do you mean?” I said.
She read the card aloud as the florist had written it: “Thanks for putting up with me. So long.”
—George Arnold, Melbourne, Florida
Read more: http://www.rd.com/jokes/funny/funny-stories/typo-through-the-tupils/#ixzz2dlt1srkO
We’ve had our monsoon rains here in Arizona. Along the freeways here in some places we have “retention” basins to hold the runoff from the freeways when it rains until it can dry up or be diverted. But someone in charge of the Severe Alert system must work for the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Department.
Follow