Two apostrophes after a word
I've read “The War of the Worlds” by Wells and currently am reading “1984” by Orwell. While reading I often met with constructions like:
must be within range of the Martians'' HeatRay now
The Parsons'' flat was bigger than Winston's
Mrs Parsons'' eyes flitted nervously from Winston to the children
I put my attention that after plural posessive forms of nouns (Parsons'', Martians'') two apostrophes stand. I used to think that there must be only one apostrophe. Is it right and why is it so?
Re: Two apostrophes after a word
Quote:
Originally Posted by Tu-160
The Parsons'' flat was bigger than Winston's
Must be an error. Quotation marks come in pairs and can be single or double [single: '.....', double "...."]. I prefer to limit use of double marks to mark off direct speech, but both are often used: it would be best to stick to one convention throughout a piece.
The apostrophe has a number of uses. In the case you mention, to indicate the possessive or genitive case:
The horse's mouth (singular)
The horses' mouth (plural)
In your example: -
if it's the Parson family then: 'The Parson's flat was...'
if it's the Parsons family then: 'The Parsons' flat was...'
I've never seen double quotes used to mark possession. Looks to me like the end of direct speech without a beginning, and without direct speech :-)
Good examples of the misuse of this punctuation can be found in, 'Eats Shoots and Leaves' by Lynne Truss - if you can't get a copy I'll send you one.