Monday, November 28, 2005

I just found out that the people who programmed Microsoft Word were not by any means grammar geniuses. I was typing up a religion paper and had to type "Moses's". The computer insisted it should be "Moses'". I'll tell you why that isn't the case. (Grammar lesson! Learning is fun!)
While this may not be the rule generally taught in school, it's what I was taught, by a very intelligent and educated woman, so I believe it to be true. If Strunk&White or some other real grammar authority disagrees with me, please tell me and I will change my sinful ways.

Ahem. When forming a possessive, normally one adds apostrophe-s to the end of the word. In the case of a plural noun that ends with "s" (so this excludes sheep and fish and that sort of thing), however, one would add just the apostrophe. This is to avoid people saying "horseses" when pronouncing the plural of "horses" ("horses'"). Similarly, words like "wolves'", "carrots'", and so forth are not prounced "wolveses" or "carrotses", unless you are Gollum, which you aren't.
Normally in school it is taught that with proper nouns ending in "s", such as "Moses" or "Heetderks", you do the same thing you do with plural nouns and just add the apostrophe, so you end up with "Moses'" and "Heetderks'". This is incorrect. For instance, when pronouncing the word, we do not just say "Moses" or "Heetderks", as we would say "wolves" or "horses". We pronounce them "Moseses" and "Heetderkses". For another instance, When it comes to names that end in an "s" sound but not an "s" letter, we pronounce them the same way ("Lance's" is "Lances") and yet write them differently, following this rule (notice that it's "Lance's" and not "Lance'"). Granted, of course, when speaking of multiple people of the same name, say, "Heetderkses" or "Lances", when forming a plural you do add just the apostrophe ("Heetderkses'", etc.). Since there is only one Moses, and "Moses" is not a plural of "Mose" (really, it isn't!), and "Jesus" is certainly not a plural of "Jes", there is no reason to treat them as plural nouns (and if I see another "Jesus'" I will kill things, grr).

In shorter terms: There's only one Moses and he's not a group of people, so it's "Moses's". Stop treating names ending with "s" like plural nouns! It makes kittens cry!

(If there are any typos, which there probably are, they are caused by my cold fingers and the urgency to write this post out quickly so I can finish my paper, not because I can't spell. I hope you enjoyed your grammar lesson, and if you didn't, well tough. I'm not taking it back.)
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