WRITE what you SAY.

This is exactly what Fowler’s “Possessive puzzles” indicates, as well as Rule 1 in Strunk and White.

If you SAY “In Jesus’ name”, without an extra “s” sound, then by all means WRITE that. This pronunciation was ubiquitous in churches in the US when I was young, and is still common today. But many today, especially if not reciting prayers or clerical clichés, say “In Jesus’s time”. No problem — if that’s what you SAY, then WRITE that.

What makes no sense at all, and is as inexcusably jarring to thoughtful readers as would be “my father’ moustache” or “with Your Honor’ permission”, is someone’s writing “Elvis’ mother” when what they say is “Elvis’s mother”. I’ve been listening to pronunciations since before Elvis’s truck-driving job, and I have never once heard a single person utter the possessive of “Elvis” as two syllables.

Indeed, I think we can attribute the growth of the deplorable habit of writing what scans as nonsense — in attempting slavishly to adhere to some imagined or mis-remembered “rule” —– to the tabloids’ headlines about Mr. Presley in the 50’s. No doubt hoping to attribute divinity to The King by emulating the then-common possessive form in phrases like “in Jesus’ name we pray”, the tabloids started writing “Elvis’ mother”. Then others too inept or lazy to use common sense followed suit, just as the same people write “between you and I” or “my wife and myself” because they think there’s some “rule” prohibiting the words “and me” in “proper English”. (Many school children who get sick of being “corrected” for natural usages like “Me and Johnny went to the movies” learn that avoiding “me and” or “and me” in favor of “and I” will keep the grammar teachers off their backs.)

By the 70’s or 80’s the tabloids had come up with not only “Xerox’ president” but even “Liz’ 47th wedding”. If we SAY what’s WRITTEN there, we see how abysmally stupid that spelling is. Perhaps the tabloids are also now writing “Bush’ presidency” and will soon reach “your dog’ telepathic powers”. This raises a second principle for those cowed into believing that they must always obey some Authority instead of using their own common sense:

Don’t side with the tabloids.

It doesn’t take more than a few moments’ perusal to see that the Times of London, the New York Times, the Washington Post, and so on, never write nonsense like “the boss’ daughter”.

But the simplest thing is just to WRITE what you SAY, which makes clear to your readers what you want to convey to them, which is surely what good writing is all about, isn’t it?

The extra ’s’ was always incorrect in our English lessons.

Do you think that in a couple of thousand years English will still have apostrophes?

But it’s not the first time I’ve been told that something I learned in school was wrong.