On 9/5/06, John H. Robinson, IV <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
Lan Barnes wrote:
>
> Except for "its" discussed above, English possessives are done with
> either "'s" or, if a word ends in "s", optionally "s'". So my last name
> can be done as:
>
> Barnes's book
I say this,
> Barnes' book
but I write that.
> Equally correct.
A really common abuse of the apostrophe is to use it as a flag to
indicate "an S is coming".
Thus the supermarket will put up signs for Apple's and Orange's. Then
there is the mail-order company Lands' End, which seems to have its
own apostrophe problem.
When in doubt, find a way to re-write the sentence so you don't have to do that.
carl
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carl lowenstein marine physical lab u.c. san diego
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
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