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Anyone nit-picking enough to write a letter of correction to an editor doubtless deserves the error that provoked it. Alvin Toffler

Oughtn't that to be nit-picky enough? [Via Google, what else?]

Yes, that is funny.

This isn't really a nitpickologism (boy I like that word!), but it's close so bear with me. I wrote an article, which I just got back from the editors. I suppose I was taunting them a bit, but in citing a researcher's work, I wrote that it was "Evans's hierarchy." I had a feeling they wouldn't like the s's, which of course we've talked about here before. Sure enough. It became, with no explanation, "Evans' hierarchy." In the history of life, I guess it doesn't matter. But, heck. Can't I just be me (or at least I)?

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Sure enough. It became, with no explanation, "Evans' hierarchy."

I'd have sent it back, corrected, and waited to see their response. (I assume that the hierarchy referred to was postulated by one person called "Evans" and not several people called "Evan"?)

You are correct. It was a David Evans...from the UK actually.

That one's always a matter for the style books, because both are accepted as correct, I believe. (Maybe I should have read the previous threads before I said that.) Where I last worked, our style book dictated the "Evans'" version, but the board elected a new chair who started insisting that we use the "Evans's" form, so we did that.

Whether he was nit-picking, nit-picky or nit-pickish, I can't say. He certainly was micromanaging, though!

Wordmatic

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That one's always a matter for the style books, because both are accepted as correct, I believe.

That depends on the style guide. I use the Times Style and Usage Guide and they write:

"...Apostrophes with proper names/nouns ending in s that are singular follow the rules of writing what is voiced, eg, Keats's poetry, Sobers's batting, The Times's style. With names where the final "s" is soft, use "s" apostrophe, eg, Rabelais' writing, Delors' presidency; plurals follow normal form as Lehman Brothers' loss..."

So "Evans", being pronounced with a hard "s", takes the "apostrophe s" form - Evans's - according to The Times. Unsurprisingly, according to Microsoft's spellchecker, "Evans's" is wrong and needs to be replaced with "Evanston", "Evans", "Evangelism's" or "Evangelist's".

The Times Style and Usage Guide does have more to say about apostrophe use, but in this instance the Times's advice is quite unequivocal.

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Originally posted by Richard English:
where the final "s" is soft

pronounced with a hard "s"

In other words, voiceless and voiced?

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In other words, voiceless and voiced?

I would assume so - but I am simply quoting the Times's words.

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Where I last worked, our style book dictated the "Evans'" version, but the board elected a new chair who started insisting that we use the "Evans's" form, so we did that.

I believe I posted this here way back when, but my daughter once got points taken off her law school paper when she wrote "Charles' case." The professor insisted the only acceptable version is "Charles's case." I guess my editor doesn't agree.

my daughter once got points taken off her law school paper when she wrote "Charles' case." The professor insisted the only acceptable version is "Charles's case."

Truly a sad thing, but then so many teachers are in need of basic education. If there were an agreed-upon style guide that the law professor had pointed his students to, then I could see taking off points, but that people have learned different rules (I learned the non-Evans one and it is my default style if no other style is being enforced). One thing I look for in the style of my students is consistency of styles. If they use Evans' in one paragraph, but Evans's in another I would point that out and suggest they choose one or the other or whatever the style is in the style guide I told them to use.

We used the Associated Press Stylebook, which recommends that possessives of proper names ending in "s" be formed by adding an apostrophe only (no extra "s"). Thus, in AP style, the possessive of Jones is Jones'.

Richard, in the U.S., I don't believe that possessives of names ending in "s" are necessarily pronounced with the extra "s." I would say, "This is the Jones' house," pronounced "Jones," not "Joneses," and everyone would understand from the context that they possess it. But I would say, "Keeping up with the Joneses!"

Wordmatic

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One thing I look for in the style of my students is consistency of styles.

That seems very reasonable.

The one thing I don't like about the Associated Press Stylebook is that they don't capitalize titles, such as Director or Education or Vice President of the United States. I think, and will always think, it looks odd not to capitlaize titles.

I might add an "es" in my pronunciation of Jones's, Wordmatic, but I am not sure because now I'm self-conscious about it.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Kalleh,

I heard one of those lawyer ads on TV today which would usually pass through my consciousness totally ignored except this one began:
Have you or someone close to you suffered any of these potentially life-threatening conditions?
Death, paralysis.....

First, you can't get much closer to a life-threatening condition than "death." And second, if you HAVE suffered death, how can you respond to the ad?

Oh, that's hilarious, proof. I think someone should call the office and say, "I need a lawyer because I am dead." One wonders how something like this can get all the way to an ad!

Heard another today, which I think is horribly painful both linguistically and medically.
The spokesman for a lawyer listed the symptoms for some medical ailment which included "trouble passing urine or an enlarged prostate." I thought passing a gall stone would be bad.....

How fast were you going when you passed this stone?

Since "pierre" means "stone" in French, would someone named Pierre be a Gaul stone?