Possessives of Proper Names With Internal Plural

 

Is it "The United States' history" or "The United States's history"? Do you treat States like a plain-old plural possessive, which never takes an extra s after the apostrophe (the three states' primaries), or do you treat it like a proper noun, which in Chicago style does take an extra s after the apostrophe (James's house)? Here's what you need to know.

 

Download MP3

Tags: apostrophe, COPY EDITING, GRAMMAR, PLURALS, possessives

This entry was posted on Monday, May 30th, 2016 at 5:15 pm and is filed under this week's podcast. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.