By HOLLY RAMER | Associated Press
Whatever the reason for Vice President Kamala Harris’s choice of Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz as her running mate, it probably wasn’t a desire to stir up a debate over apostrophes. But it doesn’t take much to get grammar nerds fired up.
“The lower the stakes, the bigger the fight,” said Ron Woloshun, a creative director and digital marketer in California who jumped into the social media fray less than an hour after Harris tapped Walz last week to offer his take on possessive proper nouns.
The Associated Press style guide recommends using only an apostrophe for singular proper nouns ending in S: Dickens’ novels, the labors of Hercules, the life of Jesus. But not everyone agrees.
The debate over possessive proper names ending in S began shortly after President Joe Biden cleared the way for Harris to run last month. Is it Harris’s or Harris’s? But Walz’s choice with her last name that sounds like an S really ratcheted up the tension, said Benjamin Dreyer, a retired Random House editorial director and author of “Dreyer’s English: An Utterly Correct Guide to Clarity and Style.”
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Dreyer was inundated with questions within minutes of the announcement, which came while he was at the dentist.
“I thought, ‘Okay, everybody needs to relax. I’ll be home in a few moments and I can go to my office,'” he said.
Although there is general consensus that Walz’s verdict is correct, confusion persists as to what is the difference between Harris’ verdict and Dreyer’s? Add the “s.”
“Defining the ‘s’ is just easier, and then you can take your precious brain cells and apply them to more important things,” he said.
Woloshun echoed this sentiment on the social platform X, where apostrophes are thrown around like hand grenades. “The rule is simple: If you say the S, spell the S,” he explained.
That puts them on the same side as the New York Times, the Washington Post and the Wall Street Journal — and at odds with the AP.
Although the AP’s style has evolved on many fronts over the years, there are no immediate plans to change the guidelines on possessives, said Amanda Barrett, the AP’s vice president for news standards and inclusion.
“This is a long-standing policy of the AP. It has served us well and we haven’t seen a real need to change it,” she said. “We know that the debate is open and people make different choices about grammar, and that’s fine. Everyone makes the choice that works best for them.”
Timothy Pulju, a lecturer in linguistics at Dartmouth College, said that until the 17th or 18th century, the possessive form of proper names ending in S — such as Jesus or Moses — was often simply the name itself without an apostrophe or an additional S. Eventually, the apostrophe was added (the one in Jesus or Moses) to denote possession, although the pronunciation remained the same.
“It’s kind of become the standard that I’ve been taught and adhere to, even though in hindsight I don’t think it’s a great standard,” he said.
That’s because linguists view writing as a representation of speech, and speech has changed since then. Pulju said he expects the ‘s form to become dominant eventually. But for now, he — like the Merriam-Webster dictionary — believes both forms are acceptable.
“As long as people are communicating effectively, we can say that language is doing what it’s supposed to do,” he said. “If you can read it no matter how it’s written, then it seems to work for people. They’re not wondering whose running mate Tim Walz is.”
If she wins in November, Harris would become the third U.S. president with a last name ending in S, and the first since Rutherford B. Hayes, who was elected in 1876, 130 years before Twitter was invented, and who escaped the social media frenzy over apostrophes. Harris is the first candidate with such a complicated last name since 1984, when Democrat Michael Dukakis lost to George H.W. Bush.
Dukakis, now 90, said in a telephone interview Monday that he doesn’t recall any similar discussions when he was a candidate. But he agrees with the AP.
“It looks to me like an s, an apostrophe, and that’s it,” he said.
Harris’ campaign has yet to take a clear position. A press release issued Monday by her New Hampshire team touted “Harris’ positive outlook,” a day after her national news service wrote about “Harris’ seventh trip to Nevada.”
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