Bull's Eye Business Writing Tips

Tip #412:  For an irregular plural noun... 

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Tip #412:  For an irregular plural noun (one that does not end in “s”), add an apostrophe plus “s” to form the plural possessive.  

For example:

Women’s blouses
Children’s toys
Men’s shirts
The alumni’s reunion
The alumnae’s contribution

Weekly Exercise:

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This week’s quiz:

Please choose the correct form of the following plural possessives:

  1. The family of the Foxes has invited you to their home.  The Foxes’/Foxes’s pets will greet you at the door.
  2. The alumnae gathered for their annual picture.  The alumnae’s/alumnaes’ pictures will be found in the school newspaper.
  3. My bosses will be at the meeting.  The bosses’s/bosses’ spouses will also be in attendance.

Comments from previous tips:

Nirav Patel commented about Tip #411:  This one is good but want some clarification in that why we have to use only apostrophe before s coz below example confused me.

Que: -3. Dallas's business district or Dallas' business district
Ans: - 3. Dallas's business district

My answer:  Thanks for your inquiry.  If a new syllable is formed in the pronunciation of the possessive, add an apostrophe plus “S” to the noun.  Here are a few more examples of this:

Your boss’s approval
Mr. Marsh’s office
My coach’s training program
St. Louis’s airport

If the pronunciation has a hard “S” sound, then add the apostrophe only.  Here are a few more examples:

Mr. Hastings’ proposal
The Burroughs’ apartment
Los Angeles’ freeways

Quote of the week:

“All of us have moments in our lives that test our courage. Taking children into a house with white carpet is one of them.”  (Erma Bombeck, American author.

Answers to this week's quiz:

  1. The Foxes’ pets will greet you at the door.

  2. The alumnae’s pictures will be found in the school newspaper.

  3. The bosses’ spouses will also be in attendance.

To send the above exercise answers to Gloria for her comments and review,  copy the questions,  paste  them into an email, answer them,  and send to Marsha@basic-learning.com.

 

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Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation, author, Lynne Truss The Everything Resume Book by Steven Graber
On Writing Well: The Classic Guide to Writing Nonfiction , by William Knowlton Zinsser  The Gregg Reference Manual, by William A. Sabin 
The Elements of Style, by William Strunk, White, E. B. White  How to Take the Fog Out of Business Writing, by Robert Gunning, Richard A. Kallan (Contributor) 

More books on business writing and other business subjects  (available from Amazon.com). 

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