Charles’s? Charleses? Charles’? Charle’s?

One good question that most of us have from time to time is “How do I show a possessive of someone whose name ends in S?”

I had previously been taught that there is a right way and several wrong ways to do it, but recently I have learned that there are several right ways to do this, depending on style and preference. And I’ve been doing it one of the less-preferred ways over the past 20 years.

Here is what I found when I referred to my copies of “The Elements of Style” by William Strunk, “Eats, Shoots & Leaves” by Lynne Truss, and “MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers,” as well as some other resources:

Make modern names possessive by adding 's to the end, no matter what letter is at the end of the name.

You certainly don’t modify the actual proper name, so you wouldn’t say “Charle’s” to indicate something belonging to Charles. Many of us would simply add the apostrophe and not the additional S, such as Charles’, but according to the resources I’ve consulted, the proper way to do this is making it Charles’s. That may look wrong to many of you, but that’s what the style books say to do. Exceptions can be made for names (especially ancient names) that end with the “ez” or “iz” syllable and sound, such as “Moses’ Laws,” but normally the writer would do better to replace that with “The Law of Moses” to avoid the issue and still get the point across. An exception is also always made for Jesus. Rather than Jesus’s life, we would say Jesus’ life.

So, the right way is generally to add an apostrophe and an S to the end of a name even if it already ends in an S except if it is an ancient name.

Charles’s job Travis’s scroll saw Jones’s wedding Jesus’ cross

#possessive #apostrophes