Rules for compositors and readers at the University Press, Oxford · Oxford University Press
POSSESSIVE CASE OF PROPER NAMES
Use ’s for the possessive case in English names and surnames whenever possible; i.e. in all monosyllables and disyllables, and in longer words accented on the penult; as— Augustus’s Charles’s Cousins’s Gustavus’s Hicks’s St. James’s Square Nicodemus’s Jones’s Thomas’s Zacharias’s St. Thomas’s Thoms’s In longer names, not accented on the penult, ’s is also preferable, though ’ is here admissible; e. g. Theophilus’s. In ancient classical names, use ’s with every monosyllable, e. g. Mars’s, Zeus’s. Also with disyllables not in -es; as— Judas’s Marcus’s Venus’s But poets in these cases sometimes use s’ only; and Jesus’ is a well-known liturgical archaism. In quotations from Scripture follow the Oxford standard.[75] Ancient words in -es are usually written -es’ in the possessive, e. g. Ceres’ rites Xerxes’ fleet This form should certainly be used in words longer than two syllables, e.g. Arbaces’ Aristides’ Miltiades’ Themistocles’ To pronounce another ’s (= es) after these is difficult. This applies only to _ancient_ words. One writes—Moses’ law; and I used to alight at Moses’s for the British Museum. As to the latter example, Moses, the tailor, was a modern man, like Thomas and Lewis; and in using his name we follow modern English usage. French names ending in _s_ or _x_ should always be followed by _’s_ when used possessively in English. Thus, it being taken for granted that the French pronunciation is known to the ordinary reader, and using Rabelais = Rabelè, Hanotaux = Hanotō, as examples, the only correct way of writing these names in the possessive in English is Rabelais’s (= Rabelès), Hanotaux’s (= Hanotōs).—H. H. [75] See p. 9 (note).—H. H.
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