Spike ,'Sleeper'
A place for Buffistas to discuss, beta and otherwise deal and dish on their non-fan fiction projects.
Okay, so, it's not just an obscure religious act of honor. So any other English word with the same s-situation would have the same deal?
This is so fucking weird. I've never noticed I was off. Think of all the papers and stories I've written with the wrong things in! I want to march back to the nuns that taught me and complain.
Technically, my name is plural, so I still s' any labels I may make.
So any other English word <tried to think of one, fails> with the same s-situation would have the same deal?
Yep. But I don't think there are any other English words with that pattern. At least, no terribly common ones.
I think I was always taught 's, but then I have spent a fair amount of time with AP Style, so it could be my thinking is muddy. So, from me it would be, say, Pleiades' Wesley fics.
Ah, but I'd say it's not plural, when it's your name. (Now I have John Malkovich in my head going, "It's my head! ") I mean, unless you contain multitudes. Which is cool too.
I know it annoys me, and that it's something that's shifted since I started writing, because I know damned well that all my things had ---s' written on them. (I think a shift in rule that affects your name is more annoying than any other.)
Huh. And here I thought I was the one being the dinosaur sticking to an oudated version of the rule, much as still I use the serial comma whenever I can get by with it. It just flows better and looks more symmetrical, dammit! Anyway, I learned the 's unless it's Moses or Jesus (or, presumably, Isis) from Strunk & White, and it's only recently I've noticed the s' usage.
Ah, but I'd say it's not plural, when it's your name.
Well, it's a bit like being named Castles or Books or Teacups.
Where you aren't, but the name obviously is.
Yeah, that's kind of what I was getting at. I'd use Teacups-the-name as singular.
Note to self: possibly name child "Teacups."
Certainly in Bridget Jones' Diary they use s'.
Nuh-uh. At least in the version here in the US, it's "Jones's"
I suspect that s's is Us, and s' is British, then.
Note to self: possibly name child "Teacups."
And I'll call mine "Biscuits".