@Mame,
From the site:
Quote:Some words sound awkward when an apostrophe 's' is added:
Jesus's disciples.
The accepted form here is to just use the 's' apostrophe:
Jesus' disciples.
N.B. This only applies to names of Biblical or historical significance e.g. Jesus, Moses, Zeus, Demosthenes, Ramses ... the rest of us whack in the apostrophe and add an 's.'
Moses' followers, Zeus' priests, Demosthenes' teachings, Ramses' pyramid
Others don't have the same clumsy sound:
The princess's chair.
The important thing is to be consistent in your use of the form - nothing is writ in stone!
Great Zeus' beard! It takes a special sort of genius to introduce an inconsistent exception to a simple rule and then admonish the reader that "the important thing is to be consistent." As far as I can tell, the "only an apostrophe for biblical possessives" comes from Strunk & White's
Manual of Style, that pernicious book of obvious truisms randomly scattered about with completely chowderheaded nonsense like this. There's nothing clumsy or awkward about writing "Jesus's disciples" instead of "Jesus' disciples." There's only one Jesus, so the rule on forming singular possessives should be followed.
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