Step-by-step guide to converting plural nouns to possessives

On rare occasions, I receive a letter where an attempt to pluralize my last name ends up being a grotesque mistake: Yate’s. It’s hard to know for sure what’s going on inside the writer’s mind here, but a degree of panic has almost certainly crept in over a lack of confidence in a rule.

In general, people tend to spin when apostrophes are added to nouns ending in ‘s’. So let’s take the time to review the rule.

To clarify, apostrophes are used to form contractions (like it is, hypocrisy, gold I would not do it) as well as to show possession (as in “That’s my father’s car”). We deal with the second use here.

Let’s start with nouns that don’t end in ‘s’ first. If the noun is singular, add ‘s until the end to denote possession. If the noun is plural, you only need the apostrophe. For example:

The man’s wallet is on the desk.

The game of women’s bridge is canceled. (the singular, of course, is ‘lady’)

Style guides usually tell you to use an apostrophe after famous names that end in ‘s’, like Jesus or Achilles. But for the less exalted nouns, to show that the car belongs to Chris, for example, the teaching has been, until very recently, to treat them the same way as other nouns, that is, to show possession by adding ‘s. Then one sentence read: “Chris’s car broke down on the bridge the other night.”

This is the point where most people look at the construction and say “that’s weird” or “that just doesn’t look good.” This reaction is almost certainly based on stunt tricks and the havoc these tricks wreak on the writer’s confidence in the scoring rules. However, English is a flexible language and it is now acceptable to write Chris’s car or Chris’s car. The challenge for the writer is to be consistent. That is, you must choose an approach and stick with it throughout your writing.

Demonstrating possession of a plural should be a two-step process, and you should avoid being tripped up by nouns ending in ‘s’. So if I am describing my car, I now have two options:

Yates’s car

Yachts because

Note here that whichever option you choose, the apostrophe comes after the final ‘s’ of ‘Yates’. The central problem with the example at the beginning of this article is that the writer did not leave the last name intact as a self-contained unit. “Yacht” has no value as a name.

If I want to describe the house where all the members of my family live, the first thing I have to do is write the plural of my last name: Yateses. Then to show possession I follow the rule of plurals (add only one apostrophe). Finally, I compose a sentence:

The Yates’ house is yellow.

Is your message incoherent if you write: “The Yates’ house is yellow”? No. Rarely does a scoring error lead to this result. The problem here has more to do with improving your writing precision. The question arises, what Yates?

Accuracy may start small at first, but ultimately, you’re working to fine-tune all of your writing. Plus, you’ll find that the little things combine to play an important role in helping your writing be more accurate. Your time learning the rules will not be wasted.

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