Using apostrophes with possessive nouns commonly causes confusion.
What about "Singular proper nouns that end in s?"
For a singular proper noun you add an s, so James's and Giles's are correct.
The exception is if it's a biblical or classical name where the the generally accepted rule is to have no additional s, e.g. Jesus', Moses', Achilles' and Zeus'.
Thanks! Any idea why the biblical/classical names are handled differently?
For example: James. Should that be James's or James'? Even the Grammarly paged linked to in this post skips over that.
Some style guides (Strunk and White!!) prefer the added 's' (which one actually says as an extra syllable in most cases anyway).
+1 to Sean's question -- that's the one I see messed up all the time :)
What about "Singular proper nouns that end in s?"
For a singular proper noun you add an s, so James's and Giles's are correct.
The exception is if it's a biblical or classical name where the the generally accepted rule is to have no additional s, e.g. Jesus', Moses', Achilles' and Zeus'.
Thanks! Any idea why the biblical/classical names are handled differently?
For example: James. Should that be James's or James'? Even the Grammarly paged linked to in this post skips over that.
Some style guides (Strunk and White!!) prefer the added 's' (which one actually says as an extra syllable in most cases anyway).
+1 to Sean's question -- that's the one I see messed up all the time :)