Grammar Question

[whoknows1230]

Posting in here for traffic!

Recently I have seen lots of Xmas decorations which say things like "Christmas at the Smiths".

Shouldn't it have an apostrophe after it because it is implying that you're going to the Smiths' house (and their house has more than one person living in it) for Xmas i.e. Christmas at the Smiths'

But what happens if the surname ends in S? Would it also be Christmas at the Andrews'?

I thought I was fairly good at knowing my apostrophes but seeing so many examples without one (or with it in the wrong place e.g. the Smith's"), I am starting to doubt myself!

If the surname is Smith then it doesn't matter how many people are in the family. In this example you don't pluralise the surname. You are adding the apostrophe and s to show the possessive.

This is totally incorrect. 'The Smiths' is the correct, pluralised way to refer to the Smith family (consisting of more than one person). Therefore being at their house would be at the Smiths' with the apostrophe after the s.

If you were talking about one person whose surname was Smith, you'd be unlikely just to refer to him/her just by surname anyway, but if you did, it would be at Smith's - no 'the' and with the apostrophe before the s.

One Smith = The Smith’s house

Multiple Smiths = The Smiths’s house. In this case there are now two “s” so we omit the second one, making it The Smiths’ house.

One Smith = The Smith’s house

But nobody would ever say that! You don't refer to an individual person as 'The Smith'! Unless you mean the blacksmith.

Sorry but all of you who are saying it should be SMITHS' are wrong.

You are missing the point.

This is NOT about the number of people in the house.

The meaning is 'The house belonging to Smith.'

So it's singular. Because the apostrophe is for HOUSE/ HOME not a family name.

The ONLY way it could even possibly be SMITHS' is if there were lots of families (not individual family members) with the surname SMITH and they were all congregating in one house.

No @Ranunculi. Just no. It's not about how many people live there.

And this is why people cba to use apostrophes

Sorry but all of you who are saying it should be SMITHS' are wrong.
You are missing the point.This is NOT about the number of people in the house.The meaning is 'The house belonging to Smith.'So it's singular. Because the apostrophe is for HOUSE/ HOME not a family name.The ONLY way it could even possibly be SMITHS' is if there were lots of families (not individual family members) with the surname SMITH and they were all congregating in one house

No. You are wrong.

The OP was referring to a party at a house inhabited by the Smiths. It's them. Not the house.

@JinglingHellsBells

No, it very much is to do with plurals. Didn't you see my Kardashian/Weasley examples?

You do pluralise family names to indicate more than one person. Don't you refer to your own family as the HellsBells rather than the HellsBell?

The Beckhams
The Windsors
The Corrs

@Reader1984

You are correct.

Christmas at the Smith's.
Christmas at the Andrews' if Andrews with an s is their surname.

Equally if this was about a boy called James and his book then you can choose:

James's bag
Or James' bag (my preferred).

You’re wrong with the Smiths example. Smith’s would be for one Smith. If a family of Smiths it would indeed be Smiths’.

I’m with @QuentinInQuarantino
It’s plural so just like The Kardashians
And the band The Smiths

I don't think grammatically there is a way to distinguish between

A) a house belonging to one family called Smith

At the Smiths'

and

B) a house shared between several families coincidentally all called Smith
*
At the Smiths'*

But there is a grammatical difference when:

C) there is one lone person in the house and his name is Smith.

At Smith's

or

D) you're spending Christmas with the local blacksmith, or goldsmith or other such metalworker

At the Smith's

However I suppose it could be short for the Smiths’ house so I don’t think the apostrophe is necessarily wrong

@JinglingHellsBells

Homer Simpson
Marge Simpson
Lisa, Bart, Maggie Simpson

The Simpsons not The Simpson

@kitnkaboodle

Reader1984 - sorry but you're wrong. The family is known as the Smiths, not the Smith. Their house is therefore the Smiths' house - or just the Smiths' for short. You just add an apostrophe too show possession by a plural noun: the dog's dinner = one dog. The dogs' dinner = more than one dog

Surely that would be 'dogs dinner' not 'dogs' dinner.

No @Ranunculi. Just no. It's not about how many people live there
It is. It’s about singular (one person) vs plural (more than one person). Singular is Smith’s and plural is Smiths’.

@CharismaticVic no - if the dinner belongs to a group of dogs, it is the dogs' dinner, with the apostrophe showing possession (the dogs own the dinner)

At the house where the Smiths live = at the Smiths' (house).
At the house where Smith Black lives = at Smith's (house).
At the house where the Andrews live = at the Andrews' (house).
At the house where Andrew Black lives = at Andrew's (house).

At the house where the Joneses live = at the Joneses' (house) OR
At the house where the Jones live = at the Jones' (house) OR
At the house where the Jones live = at the Jones's (house).

If the noun is plural, the possessive apostrophe comes after the (plural) s. If the plural noun ends in an s, the possessive apostrophe also comes after the (name) s.

There is a school of thought with singular names ending in s (James, Jones etc.) that you put the apostrophe + s if you would pronounce it that way (Joneses => Jones's, Jameses => James's) but not if you wouldn't (e.g. the Beatles' album). This can be considered a matter of style or preference, but for some it's also a matter of spoken clarity. Truncating the name Jones to e.g. Jones' house when spoken could indicate to the casual listener that the name is Jone, not Jones IYSWIM. So we can choose between strict rules-as-written or specific clarity, usually depending on context, genre and tone.

OTOH, not many native speakers are going to read "Christmas at the Smiths" and not know what is meant by it, so the fundamental function of language (i.e. communication of meaning) has been fulfilled.

How has this discussion managed to get this far without mentioning Morrissey?

As far as I'm concerned, @QuentinInQuarantino has completely nailed it. The "house of the Smith family" = "The Smith family's house"
The "house of the Smiths" = "The Smiths' house"

Sorry but all of you who are saying it should be SMITHS' are wrong. You are missing the point.This is NOT about the number of people in the house.The meaning is 'The house belonging to Smith.

Sorry, but that's utter hogwash.

here

You need to scroll down a bit in the link, to the second set of examples under 'possessives'. They give the examples:

The Smiths' vacation house
The Joneses' vacation house

Definitely Smiths’

It's wrong on many levels.

It seems very odd to me that some people don't agree that we pluralise surnames to refer to a family. I wonder if, because of our patriarchal society, some people think that "the Smiths" is actually a possessive expression? As in "the family of Smith"?? Smith being MR Smith of course ....

Smiths' is absolutely the correct form (language teacher here.)

It seems very odd to me that some people don't agree that we pluralise surnames to refer to a family

Exactly. You only have to think of famous families to be reminded what's correct- the Waltons, the Kardashians, the Windsors, the Beckhams, the Osmonds etc. Or what you'd say about a family you know- I just popped round to see the Jacksons- not 'the Jackson'! . Bonkers!

Me too.

@lazylinguist