Nicholas's or Nicholas'

[islandofsodor]

Am replying by email to an invitation.

Is it Nicholas's party or Nicholas' party. I have a feeling Lynne Truss says it could be either or am I being dense. I seem to remember something to do with St James's hospital on this point.

I will attend Nick's party

Apparently both are acceptable. I work in St James's building, but there's a St James' Road nearby?

I think it's Nicholas'...........?!

MarlaSinger - could you give me an example of when you would not hear it. I am confused as I thought it was Nicholas' (am no English teacher though!!!!!)

Nick's party would wrong.. it would be Nicks' party.

It's Nicolas's iirc; you only drop the second s if the word is a plural, e.g. if you were going to the Browns' party.

Is Nicholas's. Would be Nicholas' if it was the party of lots of girls all called Nichola.

It would be Nick's party cos there's onlyone Nick and it's his party?

nicholas's
Wingandprayer is right
If you can hear the second s then you write it

Thank you, I've learnt something today!!

either would be acceptable

to me lol

Ooh, this is one of my bug bears! I get so fed up of seeing Thomas', Chris', James' I have even now started hearing (and seeing) x' (as in Mr Wilcox' party)

I believe either is acceptable - with the caveat that having chosen one form in a document, then you must be consistent throughout.

Found this

". Usage is divided in the situation where the final [s] or [z]
sound falls in an unstressed syllable (octopus'/octopus's,
phoenix's/phoenix', and so on)."

on this web site.

Woever, it does go onto say that....."The question of which suffix is correct arises less often than
one might imagine. Instead of saying "the crisis' start" or "the
crisis's start", most native speakers of English would say "the
start of the crisis", thus avoiding the problem."

The commonly accepted usage among editors is that you use 's when you would expect to sound the second s. So Nicholas's in this instance. It is not incorrect to leave off the 's, but clarity and commonsense - which, rather than strict grammatical rules, are usually the best guides to language - suggest its usage is often preferable.

Either is fine. I would write "Nicholas's party myself" go, have fun, life's too short!

It's a classmate of ds's and unfortunately he can't go to Nicholas's party anyway but I know there are a few pedants amongst the parents so I wanted to get it right!!!!

Thanks all.