"Jaques d'Alltrades" wrote in message
k...
The message
from David Rance contains these words:

On Mon, 17 Oct 2005 Jaques d'Alltrades wrote:

On Mon, 17 Oct 2005 Jaques d'Alltrades wrote:

"Squirrels's nuts" for "the nuts of the squirrels" is also correct,
though not so often used;

Really? I'd like to verify that. Can you give me your source for
that?

If I could unforget - probably Miss Burbridge, around 1955.

Hmm, I'm not sure she was correct. I don't think you'll find it in any
book on English usage.

I have several, but Fowler seems still to be in store. The apostrophe
doesn't appear (on a quick look) to be mentioned in Plain Words by Sir
Ernest Gowers, and other English Language books are reposing with Fowler
innit.


Although absent from 'Plain Words', it was in one of Gowers's other works,
'ABC of plain words'. He wrote "There is no universally accepted code of
rules governing the formation of the possessive case of words ending in s,
but the most favoured practice seems to be not just to put an apostrophe at
the end of the word, as one does with an ordinary plural (strangers'
gallery), but to add another s - Mr Jones's room, St. James's street, not Mr
Jones' room, St. James' street."

But he wrote that circa 1950, and, lately, I have noticed the additional s
creeping into wider usage. Hence my original question as to what currently
constitutes 'most favoured practice'.