Seeking Grammar Police Ruling - Typo's / that possessive 's

[Mike]

> Lee Kaiwen wrote:
> 
> On the other hand, Steve's right in that the abuse of 's as a 
> plural HAS seemingly become common in the last generation. I'm of 
> three minds on this: the descriptivist in me finds it an
> interesting phenomenon. The proscriptivist in me cringes <snip>

Mike:
This makes me wonder about the increasing use of 's as the possessive 
with names or words ending in s already; as in James's. The 
descriptivist must admire the use since the pronunciation of the 
possessive would be Jamesez. Yet your prescriptivist must also cringe 
at this violation of the rules.

I'm of two minds here; I know what the rules is and naturally desire 
to follow it. But the 's is such a good written description of the 
pronunciation that I have been oft tempted to and actually have used 
it. 

And I always wondered what one does with a surname that ends in s. 
That is, if there is a James Dents and all the little Dents. How 
would one distinguish between one of the Dents owning something as 
opposed to the entire family owning it? If I were to say "Dents' 
automobile" am I referring to it as James' car or the Dents' family 
car? 

I supposed I could just call it the "Dense car", though James may not 
appreciate that. ;D

Mike