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

[Geoff Bannister]

--- In HPFGU-OTChatter at yahoogroups.com, "potioncat" <willsonkmom at ...> wrote:
>
>  
> > Mike: 
> > 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
> 
> 
> Potioncat:
> I thought all plural words ending in s just add an '. Proper nouns that 
> end in s have an 's to show possessive. So it would be James's car. As 
> to the Dents family. This is Mr. Dents's car. That is the Dentses' van.
> Or am I missing something in your post?
> 
> Of course, if you were saying Dents's or Dentses' it would sound alike 
> So you might have to say, this car belongs to the Dents family, that 
> car belongs to Mr. Dents.

Geoff:
Standard UK practice is to add just an apostrophe to a proper noun, so 
we would have Sirius' coat or James' wand... In Mike's example above 
using "Dents' car", the context should reveal about whom you are 
speaking. It's a bit like using "sheep" or other words in which the plural 
is the same; the context and grammar make it clear which one you are 
using. Similar thing happens a fair bit in German as well.