FOOTNOTES:
[73] Sir James Murray says, ‘This is not logical: 19 May 1862 is. Begin at day, ascend to month, ascend to year; not begin at month, descend to day, then ascend to year.’ (But I fear we must continue for the present to print May 19, 1862: authors generally will not accept the logical form.—H. H.)
[74] In references of this nature different forms are used, as—ff., foll., et seq. Whichever form is adopted, the practice should be uniform throughout the work.
APPENDIX I
POSSESSIVE CASE OF PROPER NAMES
Use ’s for the possessive case in English names and surnames whenever possible; i.e. in all monosyllables and disyllables, and in longer words accented on the penult; as—
Augustus’s
Charles’s
Cousins’s
Gustavus’s
Hicks’s
St. James’s Square
Nicodemus’s
Jones’s
Thomas’s
Zacharias’s
St. Thomas’s
Thoms’s
In longer names, not accented on the penult, ’s is also preferable, though ’ is here admissible; e.g. Theophilus’s.
In ancient classical names, use ’s with every monosyllable, e.g. Mars’s, Zeus’s. Also with disyllables not in -es; as—
Judas’s Marcus’s Venus’s
But poets in these cases sometimes use s’ only; and Jesus’ is a well-known liturgical archaism. In quotations from Scripture follow the Oxford standard.[75]
Ancient words in -es are usually written -es’ in the possessive, e.g.
Ceres’ rites Xerxes’ fleet
This form should certainly be used in words longer than two syllables, e.g.
Arbaces’
Aristides’
Miltiades’
Themistocles’
To pronounce another ’s (= es) after these is difficult.
This applies only to ancient words. One writes—Moses’ law; and I used to alight at Moses’s for the British Museum.
As to the latter example, Moses, the tailor, was a modern man, like Thomas and Lewis; and in using his name we follow modern English usage.
J. A. H. M.
French names ending in s or x should always be followed by ’s when used possessively in English. Thus, it being taken for granted that the French pronunciation is known to the ordinary reader, and using Rabelais = Rabelè, Hanotaux = Hanotō, as examples, the only correct way of writing these names in the possessive in English is Rabelais’s (= Rabelès), Hanotaux’s (= Hanotōs).—H. H.
