Corpora: Apostrophes

[gfowler]

On Tue, 18 Dec 2001, Christopher Bader wrote:

> I was pained to see Alex Fang's flame of Simon Smith's thoughtful post.

Why was that a flame? It wasn't intemperate or insulting; it merely
disagreed with a slight dose of sarcasm at the beginning. It may be
*wrong* (I don't personally have a strong opinion), but it wasn't a flame.

For what it's worth, the Chicago manual of style, an American handbook,
and one of the most authoritative, mandates an overt 's after s etc. in
all cases (James's, John Williams's, Lily Pons's, etc.), and also doesn't
want the apostrophe in 1980s and its ilk.

George Fowler

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