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Weird Punctuation Decisions
I’ve been corrected in the comments to my last post for pluralising “Mary-Sue” incorrectly.
And while part of me wants to wave my editing course in people’s faces and go “I know better than anyone! Hah!” and another part of me wants to change it so that people won’t think I am bad at punctuation, I thought it might be more interesting to make a post about it – because I’m obsessed with language, and find this stuff far too fascinating.
Yes, I did check my textbooks before posting. And they… disagreed.
Let’s look at a boring and normal name.
Mark
Original word: Mark
Possessive form: Mark’s (as in “This is Mark’s hat.”)
Plural form: well, it’d be “Marks”, right? After all, simple English plurals are made by sticking an S on the end – that’s really all that has to be done.
Which would be all well and good – if all names were names like Mark, Luke, and Katherine.
However…
Louis
This one already has enough debate over the possessive form. (Is it “Louis’s hat”, or “Louis’ hat”? No-one’s quite sure.) Add in the possibility of more than one Louis, and there’s a whole new issue.
If there are five people called Louis in one room, are they the “five Louis”, or “five Louises”, or “five Louiss”?
Buffy
If Buffy clones herself, are there “two Buffys”, or “two Buffies”?
(Jane Espenson prefers Buffies.)
Henry
Has England had “eight King Henrys”, “eight King Henries”, or “eight Kings Henry”?
My textbooks disagree. One recommends a different style for each name – “Marks”, “Louis’s”, “Buffys”, and “Kings Henry”, respectively – one says “do whatever you want, just be consistent”, and one says to use apostrophes: “three Mark’s, five Louis’s, two Buffy’s, and eight King Henry’s”.
I decided to go the apostrophe-adding route, even though I knew it would look like I was mixing it up with possessives.
So: was I right? Or wrong? Or should I have done something completely different?
Tell me in the comments!
And while part of me wants to wave my editing course in people’s faces and go “I know better than anyone! Hah!” and another part of me wants to change it so that people won’t think I am bad at punctuation, I thought it might be more interesting to make a post about it – because I’m obsessed with language, and find this stuff far too fascinating.
Yes, I did check my textbooks before posting. And they… disagreed.
Let’s look at a boring and normal name.
Mark
Original word: Mark
Possessive form: Mark’s (as in “This is Mark’s hat.”)
Plural form: well, it’d be “Marks”, right? After all, simple English plurals are made by sticking an S on the end – that’s really all that has to be done.
Which would be all well and good – if all names were names like Mark, Luke, and Katherine.
However…
Louis
This one already has enough debate over the possessive form. (Is it “Louis’s hat”, or “Louis’ hat”? No-one’s quite sure.) Add in the possibility of more than one Louis, and there’s a whole new issue.
If there are five people called Louis in one room, are they the “five Louis”, or “five Louises”, or “five Louiss”?
Buffy
If Buffy clones herself, are there “two Buffys”, or “two Buffies”?
(Jane Espenson prefers Buffies.)
Henry
Has England had “eight King Henrys”, “eight King Henries”, or “eight Kings Henry”?
My textbooks disagree. One recommends a different style for each name – “Marks”, “Louis’s”, “Buffys”, and “Kings Henry”, respectively – one says “do whatever you want, just be consistent”, and one says to use apostrophes: “three Mark’s, five Louis’s, two Buffy’s, and eight King Henry’s”.
I decided to go the apostrophe-adding route, even though I knew it would look like I was mixing it up with possessives.
So: was I right? Or wrong? Or should I have done something completely different?
Tell me in the comments!
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My bible is The Blue Book of Grammar and Punctuation but English is a living language and things change, damn it. *g*
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It really is ridiculous. My editing class got into a discussion about "Louis' hat" versus "Louis's hat", got so passionate about it that there was soon shouting from both sides of the debate - and half an hour later we still didn't have an answer.
(Personally, I'd say that the S in "Louis" is unpronounced, and when you're talking about something he owns you're pronouncing an S - so clearly it should be "Louis's hat" with the first S silent... but a lot of my classmates are convinced I'm wrong.)
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I couldn't leave this section without mentioning the humble apostrophe. Not so humble, actually, because correct usage is essential for clarity. They're used primarily to form the possessive of a noun:
• add 's to the singular form of a word (even if it ends in -s):
the owner's car
James's hat
...was the advice I parroted, then had to concede the point to a commenter that James' hat (or Louis' hat) was equally clear. I stand by Louis's hat, whether or not the -s is silent, though, as correct, very strictly speaking.
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We say "Loo-is" compared to the "Loo-ee". So I've always done the apostrophe for words ending in S.
For instance, whenever I use the possessive form with Joss' name, I don't add an additional S. It's less to me about if the S is silent, but if there's an S at all. I remember learning that in grammar school and it always stuck.
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But our discussion was specifically discussing King Louis of France.
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Over yonder, both pronounce the S. The best example would be the capitol St. Louis. Still pronounced with the S. Though when talking about historical figures, then yeah I'd pronounce King Louis of France where the S is silent.
Maybe it's just me, but I'd always thought the rule where you drop the S here--instead of Joss's, you'd do Joss'--isn't related to pronunciation. It will still be said aloud 'Jossis', right? But that it reads as less ungainly without the extra S clogging up the works.
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1 (the modern style): Put an S on the end of all of them, no matter what - "Buffy's hat", "Giles's hat" - except when they're an old historical or mythological figure - "Archimedes' hat".
2 (the traditional style): Leave out the S from names that end in S - "Giles' hat" - unless you judge that the pronunciation would emphasise both S's - "Joss's writing".
In this case, Joss is both a modern-day guy, and someone with the double-S pronunciation - so it would usually be "Joss's".
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See, I'd still pronounce "Giles'" with a double pronunciation of S. Every name I can think of that ends in an S, when made possessive would have a double S pronunciation. So I'm kinda looking squinty-eyed at the second rule. Archimedes' owl: double S. Phyllis' cow: double S. The only name I can think of that doesn't have the double S pronunciation is King Louis, as per your example above. And that's only when we Americans acknowledge the French pronunciation. Ex.: St. Louis' transit system is a mess. Double pronunciation of S.
It seems to me that basing the written rule on vocal pronunciation gets dodgy when quote-unquote English is pronounced so differently on three different continents. And that's before considering the vast variation within the same continent. And that old historical or mythological figures shouldn't get an extra S? That seems like a bizarre reason for grammar to me. At what point is a historical figure old enough to not be weighted down by that oh, so heavy S?
So I'm over here wondering why I was taught always add "'s" except when the noun ends in "s", then just add an apostrophe so the numerous S in a row aren't gumming up the works (reading Joss's makes me eyes hurt). Though I can see for clarity of the rule why the modern style just says add "'s" to everything to make it possessive.
I guess I'm saying the exceptions to those two rules above just look really odd to me. Grammar is used to denote the age of a historical figure? Grammar is influenced by spoken pronunciation that varies wildly?
I'm not sure if it's an American thing or an Emmie thing, but there's my curious thoughts.
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And yes, the possessive of Joss is Joss', the possessive of Louis is Louis', and the plural is Josses and Louises. It doesn't matter if it's spelled the same as something else. We have lots of things in American-English that are spelled the same and pronounced differently. It's all part of our rugged appeal.
I would say my own personal rule is stay consistent, and keep it simple. Sometimes I fail. :(
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I am not alone!
We have lots of things in American-English that are spelled the same and pronounced differently. It's all part of our rugged appeal.
Indeed. :D
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Listening to the song again "Meet me in St. Louis", it's funny to note that "St." is still pronounced with the hard "t" when in French it would be "San Loo-ee". So, St. Louis still being pronounced with a silent S while the hard T has been adopted is just indicative of the word being stuck in evolution for a minority.
American English tends towards a more simplistic spelling style, but there's still relics of consonants never pronounced (knives with the silent K and gnats with a silent G), where as we remove what we see as superfluous U's and turn hard S's into Z's. Then we also have words borrowed from other languages where the foreign pronunciation is adopted by some. And then there's words like "ballet" and "fillet" with the silent "t" at the end. English is such a hodge podge of different languages--Latin, French, Anglo-Saxon--that I still find the idea of basing punctuation rules on pronunciation to be problematic.
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Plus, you guys say "yuman" and "erbal" and "yumanity" rather than pronouncing the H like normal people. That weirds me out...
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Do the first syllables of "human" and "you" sound the same to you when Americans say it? That's interesting.
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Not the same, exactly. But if I was writing it out phonetically, I'd have to go with "yoo-man" rather than anything else.
(Someday, I'm so going to video myself demonstrating my normal accent and my fake British and American, so that I can actually discuss accents without resorting to really weird spellings.)
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And yes, I've been saying aloud "human" and "you" to feel the difference. :P
It reminds me of some German words that combine two consonant sounds in interesting ways for my American tongue.
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It feels like... well, like there's not a pronounced H, but that the space where the H should be is cancelling out the first bit of the Y - thus making it sound softer than a normal Y.
(Does that make sense?)
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It feels like... well, like there's not a pronounced H, but that the space where the H should be is cancelling out the first bit of the Y - thus making it sound softer than a normal Y.
Wait, that does make sense. It's like you have the beginning of the H and the ending of the Y.
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(Anonymous) 2010-04-16 02:32 am (UTC)(link)