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Post by william on Apr 12, 2013 2:07:31 GMT
I saw on the side of the London Hospital building the inscription
St Thomas' Hospital. In my view this is wrong.
St Thomas is not a pluraL proper noun, and the wording should be:
ST THOMAS'S HOSPITAL.
Likewise - The King James Bible, or King James's Bible.
But who is the final arbiter?
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Post by Verbivore on Apr 12, 2013 2:33:54 GMT
I saw on the side of the London Hospital building the inscription St Thomas' Hospital. In my view this is wrong. But in the view of many others, particularly those subscribing to the style-form "when a proper noun / name ends with an s, add only an apostrophe to indicate possession / relationship", it is not wrong. (I am not one such subscriber; however, I don't regard it as wrong, merely a variant.) That would be my preferred style, too; however, when it comes to names (personal or corporate) the holder or "owner" of the name may spell / punctuate / represent it however s/he wishes. Conventions and "rules" are, and can be, ignored or bent. When writing such a name as that which you've posted, it's wise to establish the name "owner's" preferences and the orthographical manner of its representation in business-name registration records. It is considered good form to follow the name-owner's wishes. Ah, but those are two different expressions: The King James Bible -- the The obviates the need for any possession marker on James; (King) James becomes attributive, or adjectival / descriptive, and is in no way "possessive". King James's Bible, on the other hand, denotes the / a bible (once) personally owned by King James. Your KJ examples are not relevant to your St Thomas' conundrum. 1. The owner of the name 2. The writer -- for better or for worse. It is a matter of style over convention, not rigid "rules". |
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Post by Dave Miller on Apr 12, 2013 18:12:30 GMT
Hi there, william
You've picked a difficult case to examine, here. In general, I agree with you and I hate it when I see things like Chris Evans' Breakfast Show (which seems to say that there is more than one Chris Evan) or the boss' office (which is just beyond explanation).
However ... as Verbivore says, you've picked a particular name, rather than a general noun, and it's up to them. Just to make things difficult, that hospital has been around since the twelfth century, and the apostrophe (for possessive use in English) only since the sixteenth. The hospital can also claim connections with TWO saints by the name of Thomas: Thomas Becket and Thomas the Apostle.
It seems that the hospital itself is now sticking with the ~s' form, but there are examples within its history when it used ~s's.
Let us rejoice, then, that the Royal Family's website uses both Charles's and Wales's - well done, them!
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Post by Verbivore on Apr 13, 2013 14:37:06 GMT
[...] the Royal Family's website uses both Charles's and Wales's - well done, them! Aha! A good use for them: preserving the Queen's English! Helps keep the revolting peasants in their rightful place(s).  But while on the subject of royalty: is it *The Queen's English ( POSSESSIVE -- the English of / to / for / by / with / from the Queen) or (orthographically identical) * The Queen's English ( EXEMPLAR, as in Reader's Digest) or (orthographically not identical) * The Queens English ( ATTRIBUTIVE / DESCRIPTIVE -- English of the type Queen/s -- yes either the one queen or more, take your pick)? Does it matter and would The Firm care? ** The back of my workplace chair (perched high above rest of room's heads) bears the sign: Q(uean's) E(nglish) D(epartment) -- the Quean referring to yours truly (it being an old spelling of the slangier meaning/s of queen, including but not limited to a homosexual male). |
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Post by hubertus on Apr 13, 2013 15:08:41 GMT
But while on the subject of royalty: is it *The Queen's English ( POSSESSIVE -- the English of / to / for / by / with / from the Queen) or (orthographically identical) * The Queen's English ( EXEMPLAR, as in Reader's Digest) or (orthographically not identical) * The Queens English ( ATTRIBUTIVE / DESCRIPTIVE -- English of the type Queen/s -- yes either the one queen or more, take your pick)? Does it matter and would The Firm care? ** The back of my workplace chair (perched high above rest of room's heads) bears the sign: Q(uean's) E(nglish) D(epartment) -- the Quean referring to yours truly (it being an old spelling of the slangier meaning/s of queen, including but not limited to a homosexual male). Or does it mean the Queen/quean is English? [Obviously not in your case, Verbivore!] ;D |
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pc45
New Member
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Post by pc45 on Jul 18, 2013 15:04:16 GMT
I was taught many years ago that the possessive apostrophe always came after the 's' . ie. Patricias'. Now whether there have been grammatical changes over the years, I don't know, but I shall always stick to what I was taught.
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Post by hubertus on Jul 18, 2013 18:42:11 GMT
I was taught many years ago that the possessive apostrophe always came after the 's' . ie. Patricias'. Now whether there have been grammatical changes over the years, I don't know, but I shall always stick to what I was taught. Unfortunately you were mis-taught, unless there were multiple Patricias who did the possessing; unlikely, I would have thought. |
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pc45
New Member
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Post by pc45 on Jul 18, 2013 19:14:48 GMT
I disagree, but am happy for you or anyone else who shares your view on the subject, to continue placing the apostraphe where you think it belongs, and I, and no doubt many others, will groan if we see it that way!
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Post by Twoddle on Jul 18, 2013 19:32:37 GMT
The use of the possessive apostrophe hasn't changed in the past few centuries, PC45; it has always been the case that the apostrophe is placed immediately after the "possessor" or "possessors", e.g.:
Singular noun: Patricia. Possessive: Patricia's house.
Plural noun: Patricias (i.e. more than one Patricia). Possessive: The Patricias' house.
There's no doubt on that point. If you were taught differently, you were taught incorrectly, and there's no doubt on that point either.
There's some disagreement regarding the use of the possessive apostrophe where singular nouns end in "s". For example, should it be "Pythagoras's theorem" (as the "rule" would suggest), or "Pythagoras' theorem" as many people write. I use the former because it makes more sense; on the other hand, St Thomas's Hospital chooses to style itself "St Thomas' Hospital", which I consider misleading and unfortunate because it suggests to me that the hospital is named after more than one saint by the name of "Thoma".
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Post by hubertus on Jul 18, 2013 21:09:33 GMT
... on the other hand, St Thomas's Hospital chooses to style itself "St Thomas' Hospital", which I consider misleading and unfortunate because it suggests to me that the hospital is named after more than one saint by the name of "Thoma". I prefer Thomas's as it is closer to the way it is pronounced. Also, the apostrophe stands for an 'e' in the former genitive Thomases, and is therefore an apostrophe of both omission and possession. |
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Post by Verbivore on Jul 18, 2013 22:00:33 GMT
I was taught many years ago that the possessive apostrophe always came after the 's' . ie. Patricias'. Now whether there have been grammatical changes over the years, I don't know, but I shall always stick to what I was taught. pc45: As Hubertus and Twoddle posted, you were taught wrongly -- absolutely so. But don't feel badly about that, because many others were likewise mis-taught. Schoolteachers themselves, particularly at the primary level, were also often mis-taught, or had a poor grasp of the subject. Those who knew the conventions were also torn between teaching the conventions (or "rules") and keeping it simple for the littlies to grasp (in the hope their charges' understandings were broadened at secondary level -- an unfortunately hopeless hope). If you are to maintain any credibility in your future writing, you need to discard your misunderstanding and move toward the idea that the "possessor", and only the possessor, comes before the apostrophe of possession. If Patricia (one of them) is the possessor, then the possessive is Patricia's; if the possessor is Patricias (i.e.more than one Patricia), then the possessive is Patricias'. |
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Post by Paul Doherty on Jan 23, 2014 0:56:11 GMT
I have deleted several off-topic posts from this thread.
I hope pc45 has tried to find some support for her use of Patricias' as a singular possessive elsewhere. If she researched it, she will have found that not a single style guide or grammar book supports that usage, so it seems overwhelmingly likely that she was mis-taught or has mis-remembered what she was in fact taught.
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Post by Paul Doherty on Jan 23, 2014 1:02:02 GMT
This thread is now locked. Any further discussion can take place in the mail Language Discussion board. |
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