Shays's Rebellion

[Jonathan Lighter]

Those who say, "Shays' Rebellion," are the sort of people whose mailboxes say, "The Smith's."

  I've heard both "Shays' " and "Shays's," and I always say the latter. You might get around it by referring instead to "the Shays Rebellion," but then people will think it only involved a family named "Shay."

  How is "Shays's"  different from "the boss's" ?  (Both look funny to us old-time paper-graders, because students--high scorers on the fecklessness-o-meter--rarely include the final "s" !)

  I for one learned apostrophe rules by the sweat of my brow, by renouncing fun, by burning the midnight oil with nothing beside me but a pencil, a workbook, and a glass of Bosco, and I'll be damned if any whippersnapper--young or old--is going to weasel out of doing the exact same thing !  Not on MY watch !

  That is my stand on all punctuational issues.

  JL

FRITZ JUENGLING <juengling_fritz at SALKEIZ.K12.OR.US> wrote:
  ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
Sender: American Dialect Society
Poster: FRITZ JUENGLING
Subject: Re: Shays's Rebellion
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I'm with you on the pronunciation--I've never heard as anything other than Shays. I think, though, that maybe it should be Shayzez, or?
This reminds me of something that I hear quite frequently-- Jesus'(s) church pronounced as Jesus church. To me it should be Jesus-ez church.
Fritz

>>> write at SCN.ORG 11/30/05 05:48PM >>>
I teach middle school, and my students are just starting on the
Constitution. Reading the Constitution is a big challenge for them, and
I'm always impressed with the questions they ask.

Today it was about Shays's Rebellion, an event that most history books
discuss as one of the reasons the country moved from the Articles of
Confederation to the Constitution. Most books spell it Shays's. The
leader was Daniel Shays. I have always heard it pronounced Shays not
Shay-es.

We had a good discussion about this, but I could not explain why what I
think should either be spelled Shays' or pronounced Shay-es isn't. Any
ideas?
Jan




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