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Most manuals of style say that "Sanders's" is most correct, but will allow for "Sanders'". I strongly prefer the former. It's logical if you think of it: s' is

by coldpie 11y ago

Most manuals of style say that "Sanders's" is most correct, but will allow for "Sanders'". I strongly prefer the former. It's logical if you think of it: s' is always for plural nouns that end in S, 's is always for singular. "The cats' milk" vs "James's hand." This way also matches pronunciation. It gets tricky to keep straight when you have plural nouns that don't end in S. I know "Men's clothes" is correct. But I'm not sure what to do with fish. "The fish's pond"? "The fishes' pond"? (In any case, just because a word ends in S does not mean it needs an apostrophe. Many, many English writers need this lessen pounded into their head. I lose brain cells every time I see someone write "want's".)

a3n 11y ago
I was in Sears (where America used to shop) and saw "Mens clothes".
dhimes 11y ago
That's not the problem. The problem is that his name is Sanders, not Sander.
- coldpie 11y ago
  Well, yes. Sander's is right out. But that comes from a lack of understanding of how to make words-that-end-in-S into their possessive form, which is what I was addressing.
  - dhimes 11y ago
    It seems more likely that it came from not knowing his name. But it's fixed now, so whatevs.
r3bl 11y ago
Man, it's no wonder that people like me two aren't speaking English natively get confused about that whole *'s thing.
- Someone1234 11y ago
  As a natively speaker let me just confirm: English is a very inconsistent language, where rules just as often result in doing the wrong thing as they do the right. Many native speakers get the 's/'/s/ies thing wrong, as well as two/too/to, and so on. I feel bad for anyone learning this language.
  - ethbro 11y ago
    Maybe it's the trauma from compiler design, but in times of multiple stylistic options in English I try to trend towards standardization / the more broadly applicable version. Drop in the bucket, but my small part towards decreasing the number of exceptions. Edit: and just personally, I try to mentally associate homophones (two/too/to) with another word that helps clarify them (e.g. too:also).
  - pilif 11y ago
    > I feel bad for anyone learning this language. clearly you have never tried out German :-) As a German native speaker who generally has a lot of difficulty learning languages, I can assure you that English was a lot more feasible for me compared to anything else I tried. (Of course you'll find an error in this comment - that is bound to happen in any comment talking about language mistakes)
    - ethbro 11y ago
      The only quirk to me is using "much" to modify an adjective ("feasible"), which in my experience (admittedly southern American English) a native speaker would not choose to do. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Determiner https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Determiner (If you want to hate English slightly more :-) )
    - pluma 11y ago
      I've heard a nice explanation of the difference between learning English and learning German: The rules of English are relatively simple but there are a ton of exceptions that take a long time to get right and will give it away you're not a native speaker. German doesn't have as many exceptions so you can easily reach near-native levels of fluency once you know all the rules, but there are far more rules you need to be aware of (and even then you'll need to keep track of grammatical gender). In other words, you can learn German by simply following all the rules and memorizing the vocabulary, but it's far easier to do for English (where you'll miss a ton of exceptions if you only do that). Let's just say I'm happy I'm a native German speaker already -- I probably couldn't be bothered to become as fluent in it as I'm in English as a second language.
matthewmacleod 11y ago
"The fish's pond"? "The fishes' pond"? That's a pond belonging to a single fish ("The fish's pond") versus one belonging to multiple fish ("The fishes' pond"). You're completely right!
- coldpie 11y ago
  It's hard because the plural form of "fish" is usually "fish." I think we allow "fishes" when "fish" is ambiguous, like my example. Maybe we should just change to "fishes" all the time :)
  - alex_young 11y ago
    Deep in the weeds here, but the plural of a single species of fish is 'fish', while multiple species of fish are 'fishes'. 'Swimming with the fishes' means you must have wound up on the wrong side of a boat in a diverse body of water. It would be a shame to have to 'swim with the fish'. So ambiguous.
    - coldpie 11y ago
      Learn something new every day :)
  - js2 11y ago
    The plural "fish" is more than one fish of the same species. The plural "fishes" is multiple species. At least biologists make that distinction. edit: what Alex Young said.
  - csn 11y ago
    "Fishes" is the word used to describe different species of fish. Edit: late for the party. "Deeres" and "sheepes" follow the same pattern, I presume.
JoeAltmaier 11y ago
ITs not cut-and-dried. E.g. its vs it's is unsolvable - both should have the apostrophe but ambiguity.
- coldpie 11y ago
  Mmh, not really. "Its" is consistent with other possessive pronouns like "his" and "hers". "It's" is consistent with other contractions, where letters are removed ("it is" or "it has").
  - JoeAltmaier 11y ago
    Can argue they should have the apostrophe too. Like Tom's or Roosevelt's. "Her's" Those just don't happen to be (very) ambiguous.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]

by coldpie 11y ago

a3n 11y ago

I was in Sears (where America used to shop) and saw "Mens clothes".

dhimes 11y ago

That's not the problem. The problem is that his name is Sanders, not Sander.

coldpie 11y ago
Well, yes. Sander's is right out. But that comes from a lack of understanding of how to make words-that-end-in-S into their possessive form, which is what I was addressing.
- dhimes 11y ago
  It seems more likely that it came from not knowing his name. But it's fixed now, so whatevs.

r3bl 11y ago

Man, it's no wonder that people like me two aren't speaking English natively get confused about that whole *'s thing.

Someone1234 11y ago
As a natively speaker let me just confirm: English is a very inconsistent language, where rules just as often result in doing the wrong thing as they do the right. Many native speakers get the 's/'/s/ies thing wrong, as well as two/too/to, and so on. I feel bad for anyone learning this language.
- ethbro 11y ago
  Maybe it's the trauma from compiler design, but in times of multiple stylistic options in English I try to trend towards standardization / the more broadly applicable version. Drop in the bucket, but my small part towards decreasing the number of exceptions. Edit: and just personally, I try to mentally associate homophones (two/too/to) with another word that helps clarify them (e.g. too:also).
- pilif 11y ago
  > I feel bad for anyone learning this language. clearly you have never tried out German :-) As a German native speaker who generally has a lot of difficulty learning languages, I can assure you that English was a lot more feasible for me compared to anything else I tried. (Of course you'll find an error in this comment - that is bound to happen in any comment talking about language mistakes)
  - ethbro 11y ago
    The only quirk to me is using "much" to modify an adjective ("feasible"), which in my experience (admittedly southern American English) a native speaker would not choose to do. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Determiner https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Determiner (If you want to hate English slightly more :-) )
  - pluma 11y ago
    I've heard a nice explanation of the difference between learning English and learning German: The rules of English are relatively simple but there are a ton of exceptions that take a long time to get right and will give it away you're not a native speaker. German doesn't have as many exceptions so you can easily reach near-native levels of fluency once you know all the rules, but there are far more rules you need to be aware of (and even then you'll need to keep track of grammatical gender). In other words, you can learn German by simply following all the rules and memorizing the vocabulary, but it's far easier to do for English (where you'll miss a ton of exceptions if you only do that). Let's just say I'm happy I'm a native German speaker already -- I probably couldn't be bothered to become as fluent in it as I'm in English as a second language.

matthewmacleod 11y ago

"The fish's pond"? "The fishes' pond"? That's a pond belonging to a single fish ("The fish's pond") versus one belonging to multiple fish ("The fishes' pond"). You're completely right!

coldpie 11y ago
It's hard because the plural form of "fish" is usually "fish." I think we allow "fishes" when "fish" is ambiguous, like my example. Maybe we should just change to "fishes" all the time :)
- alex_young 11y ago
  Deep in the weeds here, but the plural of a single species of fish is 'fish', while multiple species of fish are 'fishes'. 'Swimming with the fishes' means you must have wound up on the wrong side of a boat in a diverse body of water. It would be a shame to have to 'swim with the fish'. So ambiguous.
  - coldpie 11y ago
    Learn something new every day :)
- js2 11y ago
  The plural "fish" is more than one fish of the same species. The plural "fishes" is multiple species. At least biologists make that distinction. edit: what Alex Young said.
- csn 11y ago
  "Fishes" is the word used to describe different species of fish. Edit: late for the party. "Deeres" and "sheepes" follow the same pattern, I presume.

JoeAltmaier 11y ago

ITs not cut-and-dried. E.g. its vs it's is unsolvable - both should have the apostrophe but ambiguity.

coldpie 11y ago
Mmh, not really. "Its" is consistent with other possessive pronouns like "his" and "hers". "It's" is consistent with other contractions, where letters are removed ("it is" or "it has").
- JoeAltmaier 11y ago
  Can argue they should have the apostrophe too. Like Tom's or Roosevelt's. "Her's" Those just don't happen to be (very) ambiguous.
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]