Grammar Jail

[racx_00]

Smart... or should I just steal Bob's line?

Bright little genie!

[tessspoon]

Makes sense. Thanks, now I can tell my mom she's most likely technically been doing it wrong all these years.

[koko_99_2001]

Well, I've always done it like "Tess'" because I was taught that if a word ended with an "s" and you were going to make it possessive, you just add an apostrophe. I'm going to have to look into English rules

Ok, this is from the University of Oregon:
"If a singular proper noun ends in s, add an apostrophe.
    * Chris' exam scores were higher than any other students."

[Yonkey]

Well, I've always done it like "Tess'" because I was taught that if a word ended with an "s" and you were going to make it possessive, you just add an apostrophe.

That's how I was taught it too.  The first time I've ever seen it was on the word: Thomas'.

[restamper]

*brain explodes from grammar talk* 

[Jafar]

A cheetah has claws at the end of his paws, while a comma is a pause at the end of a clause! Ha-ha! A little grammar humor there.

[tessspoon]

Makes sense. Thanks, now I can tell my mom she's most likely technically been doing it wrong all these years.

Aww, dang it. She was right all along. *plans to use Tess's anyway*

There are a lot more possessive rules than I knew.

[Deloria]

Something I just noticed while browsing these forums was the amount of people who were misusing the conditional cases...it's terrible.

[koko_99_2001]

conditional cases?

[Delling]

Well, it is touchy (for me at least) what to call them, but I guess that she means English's usage of should and would. In American English, the way we differentiate the usages of should and would is neither as strict nor as precise as British English usage.

As to whether or not they ought to be called "cases," I'm afraid I must say no. Cases are generally concerned with the functions of nouns. Technically, should/would constructions belong to certain of various moods. The most commonly recognized (but certainly not the only one) is the conditional mood.

[Deloria]

Yes, forgive me, I should have called them conditionals. But no, I meant more in the way of if...were.

[hercrabbiness]

Whoa, freaky... this enitre weekend I've been working on a 7+ page paper on the phrase structure rules concerning the possessive marker "'s," and now there's a thread about it here! Ah, syntax...

[Pacman928]

i heard they changed it so all posessives were 's

[tessspoon]

From what I've seen looking it up, it depends on how awkward it is to put the 's on the end, in which case names like Tess's or Jones's have it but others are considered exceptions. But maybe it just depends on what source you're following.

[koko_99_2001]

Well, I was taught that proper nouns ending in "s" do not have the 's, so I'm following that rule *firm nod*

[racx_00]

I was taught it didn't really matter, so I'll go with the way I usually do it.

[tessspoon]

I was taught it didn't really matter, so I'll go with the way I usually do it.

Which is what?

[racx_00]

I think it looks stupid having the apostrophe and s so I usually go with just the apostrophe, ie. Tess'.

[PirateKingChris]

I was told by many teachers I was doing it wrong when I wrote it "Chris's" so I've been writing it " Chris' " since high school.

[copycat]

Smart... or should I just steal Bob's line?

Bright little genie!

She's my bright little genie! Stay away!

I was taught it didn't really matter, so I'll go with the way I usually do it.

I don't remember what I was taught, so I'll just go with what my gut tells me at the time.