Iris' Iris's ..

[tulipsunday]

Which is correct or both?

Iris' hat

Iris's hat

Thanks. Did google it but read different answers so still not completely sure.

Yes, in my work I adhere to the client or publisher's style guide. In private, I say 'Irises hat' and write out 'Iris' hat'.

People do simplify "rules" for kids at school to teach them one way, not the only way, to write correctly.

I remember showing my primary school teacher how our textbook said one thing but a book I was reading did another thing, and she explained that to me.

I'm glad she wasn't the defensive type. I trusted her and was curious. She knew her stuff and explained at the level I needed. People can be too quick to shelter behind "the rules".

Just to completely throw everybody off kilter even more than I am already, my interest in this thread was piqued in the first place because one of my mother's best friends, a lovely lady from a tiny village in Southwest Ireland - Iris (yes, really) - had a daughter in law named Iris. But pronounced Ihr-eesse.

You really don't want to know the surname.

No. You don't.

You really, really don't. You won't even believe me when I say it.

Yup. Reece. And to further stretch credulity, Iris lived in Rees Close.

It's like a 1940s BBC Announcer interview.

So Ireese Reece of Reece Close is an Irish Iris?

Newbie5652
But then when the Royal Family kids went to a school called Thomas's I thought that looked weird written down. But surely the Royal Family, being the height of manners and correctness, wouldn't send their kids to a school with a gramatically incorrect name?
The last speech I saw William make, he incorrectly used "Kate and I" when it should have been "Kate and me" so I'm not sure I trust them to know correct use!

I both don't remember being taught which of the examples in the OP would be right, and also being fairly certain I was told Iris' is correct.

Now I'm wondering how you'd correctly describe the irises of a woman called Iris who worked for a company called Iris...
Iris' Iris' Irises. I guess.

I always thought it depended on how you said it - so it would be James’s toys and Iris’s friends, but Ulysses’ companions and Jesus’ disciples.

@ Groveparker01
You wouldn’t say “ Moses’s” so you don’t write it like that - nothing to do with how old it is. If your surname were Williams, you’d say, “It’s John Williams’ book”. As for St Thomas’ hospital - it grates, and the signage round Waterloo directs you to Guy’s and St Thomas’s hospital, just to muddy the waters.

Yes - you see these differences in official signs and titles because either form is always acceptable and officially correct. Though the hospital, school etc should only have one official form of their name each!

Most of us have our own private rule of thumb, like yours. You'll see people upthread saying yours is wrong. It isn't, but it's not the only right way either.

It just is one of those cases where we all have a choice, ' or 's, every time.

My daughter is Iris. I would say Iris's hat. But sometimes I second guess myself and just rephrase what I am writing just in case!

And what's Iris's / Iris' opinion?

(Tell her to choose whichever she likes!)

She said she doesn't wear hats so she doesn't care!

Like PPs, my understanding is that both are acceptable, but I personally use 's for modern names and just ' for Jesus. I don't often have reason to write about Jesus though so I'm mainly just adding an apostrophe and s.

I’d say “It’s John Williams’s book”.

You’d say “Williams’s”? Don’t you think it sounds a little awkward?

I think both are acceptable but I do Iris’s as I pronounce the ‘s and for some reason s’ irks be terribly.

No, I really don’t. But I certainly don’t say it’s ‘right’ or that others wouldn’t say it differently.

Definitely sounds terrible. I recently heard someone saying "kidses" for "kids'" though.

Lots of people say Williams's. Perfectly correct. Less ambiguous than Williams' in speech, if anything. Sounds fine.

Kidses is obviously humourous / incorrect.

Why does it sound terrible? Everyone would say “Keeping up with the Joneses”, surely?

This sounds like way too many s sounds. I see it daily.

A glance at the media confirms that King Charles's pen is referenced far more often than King Charles' pen. Both are correct, of course.

@Rummly

Keeping up with the Joneses means the plural of Jones. The multiple members of the Jones family. Another family might be keeping up with the Smiths, keeping up with the Bakers, keeping up with the Douglases etc.

It's not the same meaning as Jones's (that belonging to the Jones family.

@Looksgood

It was obviously incorrect, it was certainly not said for humorous effect.

I understand that. But it wasn’t my point.

I wasn’t talking about plurals v possessives. I was talking about the sound of Williams’/Williams’s, Jones/Joneses.

I genuinely can’t hear anything unusual or ugly about Williams’s. And as Looksgood has said, there seems to be a more common use in the media of Charles’s. I bet a search for the possessives of other names ending in —s would show similar.

But, I think we’re all agreed, it’s not a rule.

I genuinely can’t hear anything unusual or ugly about Williams’s.

I do think that's unusual and I'm sure most people would say that it doesn't sound right.

Some things simply don't sound right to most people's ears and that's why conventions exist. This is why native English speakers know that it should be "a beautiful blue woollen jumper" and not "a woollen beautiful blue jumper."

The order of adjectives in a sentence is not a rule per se, but if the convention isn't followed it sounds immediately wrong to an English speaker. I would say that saying "John Williamses compositions" clangs and sounds not quite right, compared with "John Williams' compositions"