Having just a week ago finished Lynne Truss’s masterpiece Eats, Shoots and Leaves, I still find myself in punctuation chaos when I’m writing essays. Here’s a question:
Is it:
Having read Lynne Truss’ masterpiece…
or
Having read Lynne Truss’s masterpiece….
This site suggests that we use the first whereas this New Yorker article practices the second usage.
The first site suggests that the s’ is modern usage. When do we stylistically, grammatically decide to drop the apostrophe in ‘fridge or whether an Oxford comma is wrong or not? Do the style manuals decide these things?!
Anyhow, I was taught that ’s was correct because you pronounce the S.
Doesn’t it look better as well: Truss’s?
———–
EDIT:
I found this from Eats, Shoots and Leaves that properly explains it:
Current guides to punctuation (including that ultimate authority, Fowler’s Modern English Usage) state that with modern names ending in “s” (including biblical names, and any foreign name with an unpronounced final “s”), the “s” is required after the apostrophe:
Keats’s poems
Philippa Jones’s book
St James’s Square
Alexander Dumas’s The Three Musketeers
With names from the ancient world, it is not:
Archimedes’ screw
Achilles’ heel
If the name ends in an “iz” sound, an exception is made:
Bridges’ score
Moses’ tablets
And an exception is always made for Jesus:
Jesus’ disciples
–Lynne Truss
