James Tauber

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Possessive James

Just for the record, I think the possessive of James is James's. Not James' and certainly not Jame's.

Yet, for some reason, the majority of people seem to write James' or Jame's.

The latter two would only make sense if my name were something like Jame (and, in the case of James', there were two or more of me).

Phonetically, when you say the possessive of James, [dʒæɪmzəz], there are two [z] sounds, so there's no reason why you can't write 's' twice. Each <s> corresponds to a [z].

One interesting exception, though, seems to be with a word like Jesus [dʒiːzəz] which already has [zəz] at the end. If you listen to someone casually saying "Jesus's disciples", they will often say five syllables [dʒiːzəz dɪsaɪpl̩z] and not six [dʒiːzəzəz dɪsaɪpl̩z]. But even in that case I would argue "Jesus's" is the correct spelling of the possessive.

(NOTE: My IPA is very rusty so don't trust my transcriptions)

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Comments (5)

John Cowan on Aug. 19, 2005:

Traditionally "Moses" is like "Jesus" in this respect, and for the same reason. But yeah, what you have here is both the traditional and the only sensible position.

Mickey Hadick on Aug. 19, 2005:

You are correct, as corroborated by Fowler's Modern English Usage (2nd Edition), in his "possessive puzzles" entry. To quote, "...we now usually add the s and the syllable--always when the word is monosyllabic, and preferrably when it is longer...". He cites as examples, in addition to the Jesus situation, "Charles's Wain, St. James's Street, Jones's Children".

Joe Weaks on Aug. 23, 2005:

This is a funny rant.
One must keep in mind that one can't say : "when you say the possessive of James, [dʒæɪmzəz], there are two [z] sounds..."
That is entirely dependent on regional and contextual differences.
Grammatically, the plural of "Weaks" can be either "Weakses" or "Weaks'". The possessive of Weaks is normally "Weaks'" as in "the Weaks' dog." In this instance, "Weaks" is operating as a collective noun and can operate under those rules. I've never seen "Weaks's".

Anthony B. Coates on Sept. 16, 2005:

At school (in Brisbane) we were taught that the two special cases were Jesus' and Moses' (no trailing 's'), and that these were the only two. So I would certainly write James's, not to mention Coates's. Cheers, Tony.

James on Jan. 22, 2007:

Apparently just adding "'" and not pronouncing the "s" after names with a final "s" is "AP Style". Unfortunately this style is the one recommended by "Grammar Girl".

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Created: Aug. 19, 2005
Last Modified: Aug. 19, 2005
Author: jtauber