Rob has mentioned that he often relies on me to edit his blog posts. I wasn’t an English major, and I am only credible up to a 4th grade level. There are, however, several things that cause me to cringe regarding the great big world of grammar. These appear on blogs, everyday Facebook posts, and even on Christmas cards. One such thing is the use of possessive nouns.
A noun is a person, place, or thing. There are singular nouns, plural nouns, and possessive nouns to name a few. A singular noun is just one: candy cane, stocking, present, Santa, etc. A plural noun is more than one: candy canes, stockings, presents, elves, etc. Simple, right?
Enter possessive nouns. A possessive noun shows ownership or a possession. To show said ownership, you add an apostrophe –s. If the burrito belongs to Rob, it is Rob’s burrito. If the mind dump belongs to Rob, it is Rob’s mind dump. If the nipples belong to the jogger, they are the jogger’s nipples.
Here’s where people get it all wrong. They sign cards from The Brown’s or The Smith’s. Nope. It should just be The Browns or The Smiths. If there is more than one person in their family, it is plural; therefore, you just add an -s. If you are signing a card from your cat, then it might read “Courtney’s cat Snookie” because the cat belongs to Courtney. In almost all cases, there needs to be another noun after the noun with the apostrophe.
* Hayden’s ornament
* Reese’s wrapping paper
* Rob’s cookies
* Monica’s egg nog
Now it’s about to get crazy. Sometimes you have to use a plural possessive. That means you’ve already added an –s to a word because there is more than one and then you add an apostrophe after that –s to show ownership. For example, if the house belongs to the four Shepherds, it is the Shepherds’ house. If the court belongs to the Lakers, it is the Lakers’ court.
* The twins’ first Christmas
* The dogs’ food
Just like I tell my 9 year olds, there is always a rule breaker. If the word already ends in an –s, you simply add the apostrophe after the word. Enter Jesus. There is one Jesus, so he is singular. His name already ends in an –s, so we simply put the apostrophe after his name. Jesus’ disciples, Jesus’ miracles, and Jesus’ birthday are just a few examples. I’ve also heard somewhere that you can still add an apostrophe –s, like Jesus’s, but don’t quote me on that. Plus, Microsoft Word is underlining Jesus’s in red, which clearly means it is wrong. Some of our dearest friends are the Peters. Their name already ends in an –s, whether there is one or more of them. We can go to our friend Dan Peters’ house. The house belongs to Dan.
Thanks for listening. Stay tuned for my next grammar lesson: Homophone Edition.
Love,
The Shepherd’s
PS- Just kidding. I wanted to see who was paying attention.
You give it a try. Attempt to use a sentence with a singular possessive, and if you are feeling crazy, write another sentence using a plural possessive. Remember, it’s the holiday edition. Stick to the theme.
Monica, I wasn’t sure if Rob would get upset if I didn’t comment on this since I’m one or his early riser commenters. I’m not a grammar guru. I leave that to my Ph.D pursuing sister. However, what you are talking about today grates on my nerves. And I find typos of some of those things occasionally in my own stuff and I beat my head against the wall.
Hey to you too, Rob.
Hey to you as well Larry. At least you notice mistakes. I often don’t. It also doesn’t get on my nerves at all. I think it’s because I am hoping people will show me grace because I jack the English language up on a regular basis.
Monica, I love how you claimed possession over the egg nog, I’m a big fan of the stuff.
[Plural Possessive]: My dogs’ clothes are blue, pink, and purple.
[Singular Possessive]: Luna’s clothes fell off. (silly puppy)
P.S. VICTORY! I get to be the first comment of the day.
Darn it, I posted that just a minute too late……….*sigh*
Sean, you have to get up pretty early to beat Larry. He’s a comment machine.
The funny thing is that I only need one more minute, which I probably could have gotten if I hadn’t checked to see if I was still the first before posting.
Better luck tomorrow I guess.
Thank you for righting this wrong. Now if you could just address the difference between “your” and “you’re,” the world would be a better place. =)
TJ, this might have to become a regular series on my blog. Grammar lessons with Mon Shep.
I hate this because my last name ends in an s. I never remember. I typically use other ways in this instance, such as, Candice is mines. Just kidding, kind of. Lets go to the Sparks’ crib. Did I use lets right? I’m messed up.
Ryan, you are not messed up but you did mess up. According to my blog proof reader it should have said “Let’s” instead of Lets. This grammar stuff is for the dogs.
From what I recall, the Chicago Manual of Style rule is that, for most possessive words that end in -s, you are supposed to add an additional ‘s. The exception is Jesus and Greek names (for example, Socrates), in which case one should just add an apostrophe. My family had an intense discussion about this over the Thanksgiving holiday, and they decided to reject the Chicago Manual of Style. This is unfortunate but understandable. While it does sound awkward to say “Let’s go to the Peters’s house,” I think it grammatically makes sense. However, it does not sound right to the ear. A solution is to get around it. For example, one could simply say, “Let’s go see the Peters.”
Walt, thank you for the comment. You know you are a grammar ninja when you pull out the Chicago Manual of Style. Nice play.
Yay, Monica. This is a problem I see, often. If you want to appear as smart as a 4th grader, you will get it right.
It’s Rob’s blog, but it’s the Shepherds’cooperative effort with grammar. Now, if you could lend a hand on using “I” and “me”, the world might be a better place, grammatically. Mim
Mim, there are many rules that many of us break. Monica might need to do a series of guest posts on grammar.
Rob – I know you like to post to your blog early, but this one should have waited until mid day. It’s way too early in the morning for this.
jkg – great post Monica.
Doug, in my opinion it’s always to early for grammar. Every morning my wife kindly teaches me about the mistakes that I’ve made on my blog. I feel like it’s only right to share her with the rest of the world.
I wish everyone could read this and remember it. In addition the misuse of then and than has gotten out of control too.
Debbie, I’m awful with then and than. I don’t know when I started being so bad at, but it is my kryptonite.
Deer M, thank you four you’re grammer rules. I think that they helped me good. Irregardlessly, a language and its rules is defined by usage. So in todays’ tolerance and diversity driven society, any thing goes. Blessings to you and yore misguided weighs.
Daniel, with you being a modern day genius I always appreciate the grace you show me and my poor grammar. Thanks for sticking around and not leaving the blog on apart of my stanky English.
Rob, you do try my patience at times (smiles).
Monica’s point is well taken. As a graphic designer who has created more Christmas card that I can count, I have been faced with and argued people’s misuse of the plural and possessive on said cards. Usually I have to relent because “the customer is always right” even though they are clearly not in this instance. But growing up with an English teacher mother has made it difficult for me to ignore poor English. Don’t get me started on “text speech.”
Randal, I learn new things about you every day. You work at a book publisher and you are a graphic designer?
I work for a printing company that, among other things, does printing and bindery for books, including self-published materials. I am a typesetter/graphic designer and I.T. specialist.
Randal, we need to talk soon.
I love the advanced grammar lesson today. Sadly, we have to consider this advanced these days. Being the husband of a teacher myself, I see the atrocities that these kids try to pass off in essays that they write. Grammar is a lost art with the social networking and texting generation. I’ve almost gotten to the point where I look past a lot of it because I’m just so appauled by spelling and simple sentence structure. I know quite a few high school graduates who couldn’t write themselves an excusal letter for their English class! A couple facebook friends (family members) constantly delete my comments on their status updates because I often repeat what they write, but with proper spelling and grammar. At this point, I’m just hoping to see words not spelled phonetically, and even then, there is still a translation gap. Commas? Periods? It’s almost like they no longer exist!
Scott, you bring up a good point. Maybe the world would be a better place if they didn’t exist. I mean who writes or reads things anymore? Um…I have a blog.
Monica… Great post but I am even more confused now so I would just suggest that you stop reading my posts because my english is atrocious !
Brian, don’t worry, Monica is full of grace. She isn’t too harsh on those of us that stink at grammar.
Okay…First of all, LOVE THIS BLOG POST! Probably mostly because I’m also a 4th grade teacher and obsessed with correct grammar. But also because…. dun dun dun… I just had to edit the name of my blog when I realized it was grammatically incorrect because of this post! HAHAHA.. It formerly read “The Bozung’s”… Turns out, it should be “The Bozungs”.
Here’s a thought though…. Shouldn’t Waters Edge Church actually be Water’s Edge Church? 🙂
Danielle, yes it should. Drives some people crazy. When they started the church they didn’t like how it looked. I think they made it an exception to the rule.
The footprint of our church has many edges of water, therefore, its plural. Wait, so does that make it Waters Edges…
That is some serious grammar knowledge. Let’s see if I can do this correctly, to be honest, I am quite scared.
Singular: Last week Rebecca wrapped all of Joseph’s presents, and put them under the tree.
Plural: The mail man delivered the mail to the wrong address. It should have been sent to the next door neighbors house the Wongs.
Joseph, I’m going to have to ask Monica for help with this one. She may laugh at me but I think in the Wongs case it needs a ‘. In your sentence the house belongs to the Wongs. So maybe it should read Wongs’? I don’t have a fat clue what I’m talking about.
Love this! From an English major now Librarian, I thank you! Now, if only you could do a lesson on their, there, and they’re…ohh and to, too and two! I could go on. Great post!
Read, reed, read, red. Were, we’re, we’ve, weave. Woodchucks chuck wood at Chuck’s wooden cabin. English is stupid, my eyes are bleeding…
Alicia, is it too much to ask for someone to just redo the English language? I don’t think that words that have different meanings should be pronounced the same and I hate words that are spelled the same but mean the same thing. For example…live and live.
I have the hugest grammer idear to asx you about. How do i use the word southmore possessively?
Um…Tyler…I’m going to have to ask my wife.
Monica, thank ewe four the grammar lesson two day. Its’ much needed four me as eye am no well at using it,
But seriously, I need to start getting my work emails proofread. I saw one I sent yesterday and in two sentences I had about 4 mistakes. Now I am remembering to go back and double check. They are usually just weird typos that the little squiggly red line doesn’t catch for me.
Joe, I make those mistakes all the time. I also send emails that talk about attachments and then forget to attach anything.
This’ is the bes’t guests post ever. We are all in agreeance, Monica, your awesome.
Geoff, on behalf of my wife I say thank you. I think she is wicked awesome.
Thank you, Monica. When people mix up “its” and “it’s”, it drives me crazy.
And don’t get me started about “then” and “than”…
Larry, I stink at then and than. I apologize in advance for my future mistakes with that.
No worries, Rob. I’ve already forgiven you!
Larry, you are kind.
I appreciate the shout out to Sookie, however EVERYONE knows Sooks’ name has no N. Crazy.
Court, maybe you should change her name.
I don’t want people to think of her as some skany orange jersey lovin’ girl, just a skanky vampire lovin’ girl.
I totally put Snookie on purpose to see if you read this jank!! I know she is Sookie, the Eric/Bill lovin skank.
I’ve come to one main conclusion about the English language and have some things to say about it:
1) In the English language it is possible to spell “fish” “g-h-o-t-i”; Here’s how: “Gh” as in “tough”, “o” as in “women”, and “ti” as in “nation”
2) The English language should have this as its final, “be-all-end-all” rule: every rule of the English language works all of the time every time. . . except when it doesn’t.
3) This one is my favorites and I think many will agree: English is a stupid language.
makes me want to go ghotieng.
Moms aint got no more pie’s and that last piece of fruitcake is mines.
Stevie, you can have that fruitcake. It’s gag nasty.
This was great. As a self-professed “Grammar Geek” and English teacher, I enjoyed and identified with this. Tense agreement is what kills me the most, particularly when I’m reading Middle School stories.
Ex: “He was eating watermelon. He really likes fruit. He might have been a food critic.”
Seriously? Is your subject a time traveler???
I digress.
Quality stuff, Monica!
Thanks so much for addressing this! Total pet peeve of mine. Here’s my example:
“The Smiths are going to spend Christmas with the Jones’. Yippee!”
But one question…in Rob’s bio above (top left) I am confused by “Waters Edge Church”…shouldn’t it be “Water’s Edge Church”? 🙂
Merritt, yeah you are technically right about Waters Edge. They didn’t like how it looked so they broke the rule. Thanks for stopping by!
Thank you Monica!!! I LOVE GRAMMAR. And I love this.
I love the rule regarding fewer or less. When grocery stores have signs that say 10 Items or Less it really should be fewer. Because fewer is for things you can count and less is for things you can’t (like sugar, for example. Less sugar, please! OR fewer grains of sugar, please!)
WOOOOOO!
Gabriella, it’s surprising to me how many people really love grammar. I am going to have to have Monica do some follow up posts. This grammar thing is an untapped market in the blog world.
My moms’ an english teacher so its rubbed of on me,
Was this comment meant to be ironic? 🙂
I don’t know what to comment–I feel like I should be in the fetal position in the corner, sucking my thumb.
Matt, I’m with you. Not literally in the corner but figuratively speaking.
There are lots of things in English that makes me confuse.The grammar is one of them because i am not getting the grammar things.
D and g, I’m with ya.
Wow! This is really funny to me! I am not a grammar expert, but simple mistakes make me crazy! Every time my mom types out an email, I am called to proofread it. (: Usually it takes me so long that she finally just says, “Never mind!” (notice the quotation mark AFTER the exclamation mark) I think if she would just leave out all punctuation, it would be easier for me to fix. That’s ok; I actually enjoy it.
(singular possessive) My mom’s grammar is sad.
(plural possessive) The kings’ gifts were given to Jesus in Bethlehem.
(Monica, please let me know if you see anything wrong) Thanks (:
I loved you’re post! (jk)
Morgan, God has blessed your mom with you. I think every person that stinks at grammar needs someone that is good at it in their life. Thus I have my amazing wife.
Rob, Have you seen the movie Diary of a Wimpy Kid Rodericks Rules (I may have messed that up) anyway the idea is that the older brother teaches his kid brother how to mess up really bad doing chores so he does NOT have to do them ;)So I mess up really bad typing and she does it for me. Since we are homeschooling it would not look good the teacher having very bad grammar so I am very thankful for a GREAT curriculum. Morgan says that is all about caring enough to get it right and I am so thankful that she does 🙂 Kim