Hunting the elusive apostrophe

Well, let's see ... An apostrophe shows possession.

If the name of the river was the St. John's - it would imply that the river belonged to St. John. (sometimes pronounced Sin gin' - :-) ) The same logic can be applied to the county name. Does the county belong to St. John?

Thusly, if an apostrophe were at the end of the name - like this - St. Johns' - it would imply that there were more than one!

 So, in short - it probably just got too confusing!

(Shouldn't it say Mark Pettus' blog? :-)  JK! )

Also, maybe the challenge should be - "Why is there an "S" added to the end of St. Johns in the first place?

We don't say "Duval's County" or "Marions County". Hmmmnnn....

But we do say Walton's mountain and Dawsons Peak. In Indiana there's a place called Santa Claus Land — not Santa Claus's land, because he's just the hired help. I think Pepsi may own the place, which makes me envision Christmas Eve news coverage: Live from the Pepsi-Cola North Pole.

And I've already wondered what adding My (a possessive) in front of the possessive St. John's would mean, as in My St. John's Sun. Does that mean each of us owns our very own St. John, who in turn owns a newspaper and Web site?

Ah, but I digress ...

Good points and good question.

Anyone else?

I LOVE apostrophes but could use a refresher course on their usage which is what makes this blog so cool.

 I think  the 's' in “Mark Pettus’s” is used correctly i.e., the apostrophe and the ‘s’ added to the singular form to show possession. Like Mary’s hat ??? But that's a guess.

 I also think that in order for each of us to own our own St. John who in turn owns his own sun (newspaper or not) it would have to read: “My St. John’s’ Sun” or maybe "My St. John’s Sun’s Visor"

Lily,

I'm pretty sure my copy of Harcourt and Brace — the quintessential high school English manual — told me to add 's to the end of words ending in s that were not plural when I wanted to denote them as possessive. So does the Chicago Manual of Style, the novelist's grammar bible.

But in the newspaper business, the Associated Press is the king of style and the rest of us pay fealty to its Stylebook (and guidebook on media law). The AP mandates the use of a trailing apostrophe for all possessive words ending in s. Hence, Pettus' stories for the paper are written just so — and Pettus's novels and short stories are written a bit differently.

The AP likes to do away with unnecessary characters — don't get me started on what they've done to poor comma (every newspaper copy editor I've ever worked with HATES my love of commas) — an aversion that dates back to the days when every character on the page had to be manually typeset after first being cast of molten lead.

Remember, this is the English language we're writing, and the "rules" differ based upon the authority enforcing them. If you work for a newspaper you probably need to listen to your editors (most of the time). If you're taking a creative writing course in high school, feel free to do exactly what your teacher tells you to do.

When I was in school, I distinctly remember being told, "Ain't ain't a word," but it darn sure is — although I'm still not sure it's a contraction (ai not?) so I have no idea why it has an apostrophe and St. Johns doesn't.

By the way, Lily, if you ever get your own My St. Johns Sun visor, would it then be Lily's My St. John's Sun's Visor?

I really thought that there were only three basic rules for using an apostrophe...this is fascinating stuff (and no, I’m not kidding)...strange as it may seem, being grammatically correct is very important to me...thanks!

RE: words that aren’t words: I would have bet – and actually did bet - that ‘conversate’ was not considered a word, and I was wrong about that.

And, if I were to have my own personal saint named John (although technically, wouldn’t he have to be named Johns?) who had his own sun and if that sun needed a visor which it then gave to me, I think it would be:

Lily’s St. Johns’ Sun’s visor

If someone, saintly or not, were to give me my own visor as a promotional tool for the newspaper / website “My St. Johns Sun” then I think the proper phrasing would be...Thank you!

My high school days are well behind me but because I do earn my living by writing, this information is extremely useful for me. Besides, it’s always so much fun to learn something new – or re-learn something that had been forgotten!

What about the semi-colon? (My first real love, although many have told me that using one is pretentious.)

One more question – was there ever a comma in St. Johns? And if so, who decided to eliminate it and when did they make that decision? Or is that what we are supposed to be discovering?

Oops...I meant apostrophe, not comma...anyway, here’s my theory:

Putting “St.” before the word “John” personalizes the word and makes it a proper noun; the inclination then is to make that possessive by adding the ‘s'. (Think St. Luke’s or St. Vincent’s both of whom are advertisers in the St. Johns Sun, I believe.) And that may have been the case initially. But, the possessive designation is not applicable because the county is not, in fact, owned by St. John. (Neither is the river nor is the sun.) Therefore, adding the apostrophe ‘s’ to either county, river or sun would be incorrect.  Someone must have realized this and dropped the apostrophe ‘s’. Adding the word "My" before St. Johns Sun is grammatically correct but not entirely accurate. The only completely correct use of the apostrophe and the word "my" when used in conjunction with My St. Johns anything would be Lily’s My St. Johns Sun visor...perhaps someone will realize this as well?

Mark Pettus' article in this week's paper was a joy to read. The original founding document of our county (General Jackson's ordinance) is a very important piece to the puzzle. Thank you or clarifying the position of the U.S. Board on Geographic Names. Their policy requiring the abolition of possessive punctuation is misguided and short-sighted. And I don't believe we have any obligation to follow their pronouncements. This is what happens when you loose lawyers and bureaucrats on an otherwise accomplished and stately scientific institution such as the United States Geological Survey. For in science, matters of proper nomenclature are settled strictly by priority. That is: the name that is used when first naming something, shall be the proper name henceforth. Therefore, because the document that officially created our county used the name “St. John’s”, that name, with that spelling shall be the proper one. Not: “St. Johns” “St. John”, “Saint Johns” or “Saint John’s”. It shall be “St. John’s” just like the General said it should. So for my purposes, the apostrophe stays! That is, when referring to the county. The proper term to use when referring to the river is another matter. To follow the strict rule of priority would be more difficult. The river was named Rio de Corrientes originally (see map below). As Mr. Pettus pointed out, the name of the river then went on to honor the month of May, then one saint, then another - this time St. John. The Spanish version of the name then became Rio de San Juan - clearly possessive. So, I would say that, following the priority principle, the English version of the original name should also indicate the possessive. And in English, the possessive in this case is indicated with an apostrophe. From now on I'll use apostrophes for both the county and the river.

Map below from 1597.

The map below from 1825 shows how badly the cartographers had already begun screwing up the names around here, a mere four years into our county's history.