The dinged surfboard belonging to Barry Santos is Barry Santos’ board.
Not Barry Santos’s board.
Not Barry Santoses board.
Certainly not Barry Santo’s board.
The sign may say “Moniz’s laulau’s for sale, two for ten dollar’s” and the laulaus may be delicious and the price a good deal, but the sign is still wrong. Other examples:
Pickled mango’s
Graduation lei’s
Jackson’s chameleon’s
Fresh pastele’s
Nobody likes a grammar scold, and few get through life without their share of embarrassing misspellings and mis-punctuations. But rogue apostrophe-S’s have taken over our community’s like swarm’s of uku’s.
Annoying, right?
Hawaii’s diverse culture seems to offer plurals and possessives that are particularly tricky for written English.
The mango tree may be loaded this year, but if you’re giving away the surplus fruit, the sign should say, “Free mangoes,” not “Free mango’s.”
The individual mango does not own anything (which is sad, I know, but the mango is OK with it). If you’re talking about the mango’s seed, you can
get away with using the apostrophe-S to indicate the seed that came from the mango. But if you’re selling jars of it on the side of the road, don’t write “mango seed’s” on your sign. (But then, who would, right? Everybody uses “mango seed” as the plural, whether talking about one single seed or a thousand bags for sale at the Aloha Stadium Swap Meet.) If there’s more than one mongoose eating the fallen mangoes, the plural of mongoose is mongooses. You probably wanted to say mongeese, and if it makes you happy, go for it, but various dictionaries say mongooses is preferred. The mongoose might own something, and in that case, it would be the mongoose’s stuff. But if get plenty mongoose, the plural is not mongoose’s.
Then there’s the issue of names.
The Kanahele family collectively is the Kanaheles and when you drive past their house and wave hello, that’s the Kanaheles’ house. The apostrophe comes after the s when the s made the noun plural, so no need for Kanaheles’s, because that will just make you spit when you try to pronounce it.
OK, but what about their neighbors, George Medeiros and his family?
The website Grammar Girl, a favorite for clearly explained rules of the language, has this reminder:
“Some names need an ‘es’ to become plural: names that end in S, X, Z, CH and SH, for example:
>> The Joneses invited you to hold ladders while they hang lights.
>> The Foxes decorated four Christmas trees.
>> The Alvarezes went to visit their grandmother.
>> The Churches sang in the choir.
>> The Ashes got stuck at the train station.
Never use an apostrophe to make a name plural. Apostrophes are for possessives.
So if the Medeiroses live next door to the Kanaheles, that’s the Medeiroses’ house. Tristan Medeiros’ best friend is Barry Santos.
If Barry Santos had more than one dinged board, those would be Barry’s boards, not Barry’s board’s.
Whatever. Just say Barry-and-Tristan-dem get planny surfboard and choke mango. ‘nuff. Pau.
Reach Lee Cataluna at 529-4315 or lcataluna@staradvertiser.com.
