Possessive about plurals.
Friday, October 9th, 2020
I looked over the titles of the last few posts (I try to write every day, and since 2020, well, since something like January 5th or 6th, I’ve been doing that.)
For some reason, I’ve been writing a lot of plural titles.
Garage queries. Soggy bands. Carefully made warnings. You get the idea.
And then I started to think how few of my post titles had a possessive in it, and how few had a possessive plural, which the Associated Press and I differ on when it comes to usage, but only when the possessing thing ends in an S. Like my name, Burns. Like Athens, as in Ohio or Georgia. Comes up all the time.
They would say Kansas’ republicans, and I (along with the Chicago Manual of Style) would say Kansas’s republicans. I think if they were saying it out loud, they’d pronounce the first one like the second example, but that’s a whole different variety of nuts.
So now I’m left to ponder whether I should go out of my way to write more headlines that are possessive plurals formed from words ending in S. And my conclusion: I need to get some rest.
Happy Canadian Thanksgiving to all this weekend.
