So recently in LA class, we were learning about the significance of the apostrophe in ownership. My teacher said that if you have many people own something, the apostrophe goes after the "s." Of course if it's one individual, it goes before the "s." Also, when a name or thing ends in an "s" and it's one thing, the apostrophe goes after the "s" in that word.

Well, my question is, what if, for example, you have many a "Jesus" and they all own one thing; do you put the apostrophe after the "s" in the word like if it's one thing, or do you but an "s" afterwards or do you but "Jesuses'" or what? I stumped my teacher with this question, too. Any of you professors or very smart people know? And my teacher is very intelligent person and I got her good. Ideas???

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When life gives you lemons, make orange juice.

"Go ahead, bash me. It only makes me stronger and more likely to bash back."

-my sister after reading a rather rude comment on her xanga...

I'm fairly good at grammer. But I don't know why teachers bother calling it the "rules" of English. There are no rules. Every rule is broken.

i'm pretty sure you can say Jesus' if you imply in the context that there are more than one. like, you could say "Those Jesus' beards were too long." or "These Jesus' story doesn't make sense." I think that's right, but i don't know. even if it is right, it sounds awkward. i'm not sure.

Actually, the plural of Jesus is Jesuses, just like the plural of James is Jameses and the plural of gas is gases.

The sentence would talk about those three Jesuses' cat or something of the sort.

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I'm allergic to cars. Everytime one hits me I break out in death.

yeah, see, i was wrong. that still seems kind of awkward. I've been confused about spelling ever since i moved to Canada. colour or color? theatre or theater? confusing stuff... and that whole 'zed' thing, i've lost all confidence in the english language... i guess i just make up my own rules now.

Ahh it's def. not "Jesuses" hah.

It's "Jesus'" but that rule usually only applies to classic, Biblical names.

If it's "Charles" persay, it'd be "Charles's"

But see what I'm confused about is your sentance context. What I got from your original post is you want to say if there are many people named Jesus owning one thing, what would you say? Well take my name. If there was more than one Samantha owning a pen I don't think it'd even sound right to say "Samanthas' pen." You'd give the subject a more general term "The girls' pen" "Their pen" but maybe that's just me?

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"if you let them make you; they'll make you
paper mache; at a distance you're strong; until
the wind comes; then you crumble and blow away"

Fleur...zed, colour, and theatre, are the original, correct British spellings...America and other countries changed it themselves.

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I'm allergic to cars. Everytime one hits me I break out in death.

I know that they changed them, i just have yet to understand why they changed them. do you have any idea how long it took me to figure out what a 'zed' was? it was quite embarrassing actually.

Well you've said it twice now so tell me, what on earth is a zed eh?

~GwP~

Canadians pronounce the letter 'Z' as 'zed' instead of 'zee'. I'm pretty sure that comes from their French background though, and not from the British.

No, in Britain it is a Zed as well...Americans changed the pronounciation to "zee" to make it rhyme with a lot fo other letters, (B,C,D,E,G,P,T,V)

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I'm allergic to cars. Everytime one hits me I break out in death.

A,B,C,D,E,F,G,H,I,J,K,L,M,N,O,P,Q,R,S,T,U,V,W,X,Y, and Zed?

I see their point.
Makes the alphabet a lot easier to learn too.

~GwP~

really? dang. See, this is why I want to move to a smarter country like britain because they're aren't stupid and have to change "zed" to "z." Geez I hate America and I hate being American. Land of the Free my butt.


I'm really unpatriotic. X)

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When life gives you lemons, make orange juice.

"Go ahead, bash me. It only makes me stronger and more likely to bash back."

-my sister after reading a rather rude comment on her xanga...

Zed makes better sense. When spelling things out over the phone people need to say a word with that letter because so many of them sound alike. ZCD - and it really bites if you have a hearing problem.

Ok, wow. just cause they altered a few spellings and pronunciations doesn't mean it's not a "smart country" or whatever you said. and it certainly doesn't make the country less free. don't get me wrong, Britian is a wonderful country, but i don't think it's because of the way they spell a certain word or pronounce a certain letter. oh, and i didn't say that one spelling or pronunciation was better than the other, all i said was that i got confused and, consequently, made fun of because of the differences. it's ok now, cause now i guess i'm more 'cultured' or whatever, and i can easily recognize a canadian now because of the slight differences in pronunciation. I can actually do a successful imitation of a canadian now. i'm moving back to the states this summer though. to all you canadians, your country isn't as bad as i thought it would be. the only suggestion i can think of right now (besides political ones) would be to change the whole milk in a bag thing, cause that's just wrong...

So wait do they pronounce Z as zed in words to like it they said zebra it would sound like zedebra or zedbra?

~GwP~

no, it's just said as 'zed' when you pronounce the letter. such as--- "is there a zed in brezicki?"--- it was really confusing in math too, when there was a z for a variable and my teacher kept correcting me when i said 'Zee'....

"Zed's dead baby... Zed's dead."

We love you Quinton!

When I was doing alot of Army work - we always used to just piss-fart around using the phoentic alphabet. Alpha, Bravo, Charlie... Yankee, Zulu.

So if you wanted to talk to Jim - you'd call out: "Hey Juliet India Mike, Get the hell over here". Twas' funny for about the first 2 days... Then we just switched to acronyms.