Should plurals become possessive?
Ratna Raman
While walking through Delhi's roads and admiring private housing, one often encounters incorrect signages. Imposing granite and steel houses often sport a house number and a nameplate display saying Suri’s or Ahuja's for instance. These are examples of incorrect use of the apostrophe. In written English the plural is indicated through the addition of an ‘s’ (monkey, monkeys) or an ‘es’ (actress, actresses). Nouns ending with a ‘y’ drop the consonant and take on an additional ‘ies.’ The plural of baby is babies, the plural of drapery becomes draperies. Plurals never take on the comma shaped apostrophe. This mistake surfaces often enough in serious writing.
So when we say baby’s teeth, the teeth mentioned belong to the baby. The possessive apostrophe always indicates ownership. For instance: This is Danish’s dog. This is Ramya’s home. This is Shruti’s camera. Each of the objects in the sentences above (dog, home, camera) belong to the subjects indicated before the object. Apostrophe's can be added to both proper nouns (names of people and places, i.e, Delhi's weather, Chandigarh's parks) and common nouns (the teacher’s book, my father-in-law's walking stick).
Possibly Mr. Suri’s intention was to state that several members of the Suri family lived in the huge granite and steel house. All plural goodwill was however cancelled out by the addition of an unnecessary apostrophe. Passers-by who know their grammar will continue to wonder whether Mr. Suri , after fighting with his family is churlishly asserting sole possession of that particular address. Since the use of an apostrophe before an ‘s’ is always an indicator of possession, people could also puzzle over why other Suris had been denied their rights. By erring on the side of grammar, Mr. Suri has built up a rather unflattering picture of himself. So it would be a good idea for all house owners to banish the offending apostrophe and restore plurality in their homes. If the Mangaldas family wished to indicate that they lived at a particular address, they would be required to write either Mangaldas or Mangaldases. Any noun routinely ending with an ‘s’ takes on the ‘es’ in the plural. The plural of Vats is Vatses and Jones is Joneses. The plural of class is ‘classes’ and mass is ‘masses.’
This alters a bit when we use the possessive in nouns ending with an ‘s’
For instance when we say “Charles Dickens’s bi-centennial was celebrated recently,” Dickens’s is used as the possessive apostrophe of the proper noun Dickens. To tidy up this usage the ‘s’ after the apostrophe is dropped and the apostrophe is authorised to stand alone. Dickens' with an apostrophe and without an ‘s’ is also accepted usage.
This would also be true for Harbans and Vats, as in Harbans's car or Vats’s cycle. The tidier alternative is to write the sentence in passive or active voice respectively, i.e., ‘The car belongs to Harbans’, ‘Vats owns a cycle’ or the ‘bi-centennial of Charles Dickens was celebrated recently.’
What happens when a plural takes on a possessive apostrophe? We are reduced to constructing an extremely bulky word. When using the possessive apostrophe to narrate that the Harbanses went on a holiday, the expressions Harbanses's holiday (with an apostrophe followed by an s) or Harbanses’ holiday (with only an apostrophe) are grammatically correct. Doing away with the apostrophe and using an altogether different expression such as ‘the Harbans family’ makes for far less fussy writing and easy enunciation.
