Dave's ESL Cafe's Student Discussion Forums

[leslie]

Hi,

When making possesive case, are there any rules to determine when to add 's' and when not to after proper nouns ending with 's'? For example, Exodus, Swiss, United States, Christopher Cross, etc.

Thank you for your help!

Leslie
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Less Is Blessed

[2006]

This question even gives native speakers a lot of trouble.

The rule that I know says that for the singular possessive of names that end in an s sound, you can either just add an apostrophe or add an apostrophe and an s.

So you would say/write 'Christopher Cross' cat' or 'Christopher Cross's cat.' (the second one sounds more natural to me)

Exodus and Swiss should follow the same rule, if they are names.

For the plural possessive , you add es and an apostrophe. So it would be ''the Crosses' cat.''

If you mean the USA, you should say/write ''the United States of America's representative.''
For unnamed united states, it would be ''the united states' representative".

[leslie]

Thank you very much for your clear explanation, 2006. Now, I understand it better. Thanks!
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Less Is Blessed