As a class, we haven’t gone over a lot in the way of punctuation and grammar. This is perfectly normal since we’ve only met four times and one of those days was Syllabus Day. What we have gone over so far in this class, apostrophes, I’ve found extremely interesting and helpful.
Before this class, I knew how to use my apostrophes, or so I thought. It’s not that my use of apostrophes has been wrong; I just never thought about the massive amounts of gray area I had been ignoring all these years. NUMBERS, LETTERS, ACRONYMS? Was there really more than one way to punctuate a variety of things and I had never known? Or had I unwittingly been switching back and forth, fluttering around the gray area like a confused punctuation moth drawn to the flame of the apostrophe?
Another thing I’ve learned in this class so far was the ‘Jones’’ and the ‘Joneses’. My last name ends in an e, so this has never been a problem for my mother when doing the return address for the Christmas cards. ‘The Moore Family’ is extremely easy to tell where you put an apostrophe and where you don’t. But those silly Joneses are an entirely different matter. Now, here’s my question for the perpetually forgetful: would there ever be a time where I would use Joneses’ ? I’m just avidly curious about this because one of my roommates asked I wasn’t sure what to tell him. So, I said I’d ask my class and get back to him.
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ReplyDeleteI've never thought about the "Joneses" pluralization predicament much myself, considering my last name is Blair! It's so much easier to just say "the Blairs."
ReplyDeleteSo, to answer your question, I just apply it to my own easy last name first. What if I needed to say the plural possessive form of my last name, for instance, if I was talking about my family's cat? I would say, "Clark is the Blairs' cat." But what if Clark belonged to the Jones family a.k.a the Joneses? I would say, "Clark is the Joneses' cat." So yes, you do use "Joneses' " when you need to use the plural possessive form of "Jones." :)
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ReplyDeleteTo piggyback on what Emily said, I would try to simply avoid the use of 'Joneses'.' While Emily is correct - I think - I would simply say: "Clark is a cat owed by the Jones family."
ReplyDeleteAlso, I loved your moth metaphor! Congrats on great success in all things that involve flaming apostrophes.
Yes, Emily is exactly right. As for avoiding it: I wouldn't. Don't be afraid to be wrong.
ReplyDeleteBTW, love your pattern-of-the-week... which you used with a question, giving it a really indeterminate feel. Sweet.