11 Plus Exams Forum

My DS has just brought home a times table mat for his cousin. In the middle of the mat, it has printed "Thomas' Tea Times".

My DS said that the apostrophe counts as another 's' as well.

I was taught that it should be "Thomas's Tea Times" and if there were two Thomass'?

Please help someone as I'm confused ............

I would have gone with what you've said. Sally also answers this well in the following thread:

http://www.elevenplusexams.co.uk/forum/ ... =1&t=23956" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

I believe both are technically acceptable, although I have to say I prefer Thomas' leg to Thomas's leg as it looks ugly. The vagaries of the English language!!!

faitaccompli wrote:I believe both are technically acceptable, although I have to say I prefer Thomas' leg to Thomas's leg as it looks ugly. The vagaries of the English language!!!

Thank you - should really listen to DS !

SEP18 wrote:

faitaccompli wrote:I believe both are technically acceptable, although I have to say I prefer Thomas' leg to Thomas's leg as it looks ugly. The vagaries of the English language!!!

Thank you - should really listen to DS !

I hate it when my DS corrects me over things like this.

If it ends with an s e.g. St James the acceptable options are St James' or St James's though I prefer the first as it's less messy!

SEP18 wrote:I was taught that it should be "Thomas's Tea Times" and if there were two Thomass'?

Although I was taught that " Thomas' " was acceptable, I have always preferred the additional s as in "Thomas's". Somehow the apostrophe on its own seems slightly naked!

The plural possessive would be "the Thomases' Tea Times".

Would it? I thought I was quite good (read pedantic) over apostrophes but I didn't know that, even though our surname ends in an "s"!

Thank you Sally-Anne. I did not know that you would add "es" on the end.

Fluffyd - we often have discussions in our house who is right? The smug little smile and no words, is enough to make me feel quite inadequate some times (although on this occasion, I'm not sharing the news!)

Thank you.

scary mum wrote:Would it? I thought I was quite good (read pedantic) over apostrophes but I didn't know that, even though our surname ends in an "s"!

Yup!

You need to get over to the Apostrophe Protection Society (possibly the biggest bunch of pedants on the entire internet): http://www.apostrophe.org.uk/faqs.htm" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

What if there are several people called James who share the book? The plural of James is Jameses and plural possession is denoted by s’ so it should be this is the Jameses’ book.

My English teacher may have been one of the most miserable old bats you could possibly hope to meet, but she certainly did me proud on apostrophes. (Note that I elected to give up on avoiding split infinitives a long time ago!)

Unfortunately I think I may have been off sick the day she covered over-use of commas, as far too many of my posts reveal.

Sir Ernest Gowers wrote a book called "The Complete Plain Words" - (I did it for A level "several" years ago) From recollection it had a fab section on the apostrophe and an even better one on the use of the comma!