Possessives without an Apostrophe, and Compound and Linked Nouns
For some words, an apostrophe is not required to form the possessive case. The personal pronouns ‘our,’ ‘your,’ ‘her’ and ‘their,’ for instance, are already possessive forms (‘our home,’ ‘your article,’ ‘her dog’ and ‘their car’). However, an ‘s’ (without an apostrophe) can be added for a somewhat different use of these possessives, as in ‘the house is ours,’ ‘the article is yours,’ ‘the dog is hers’ and ‘the car is theirs.’ An ‘s’ alone should also be added to the pronoun ‘it’ to form the possessive, as in ‘the tree lost its branches in the storm.’ When both an apostrophe and an ‘s’ are added to ‘it’ (it’s), the result is not a possessive, but a contraction meaning either ‘it is’ or ‘it has.’
An ‘s’ alone to indicate possession is also used in other situations. It is an appropriate construction, for instance, when naming wars known by their length, so ‘the Hundred Years War’ is correct, but neither ‘the Hundred Year War’ (without the ‘s’) nor ‘the Hundred Years’ War’ (with the apostrophe) is. An ‘s’ alone is used in the names of some businesses and institutions, whether singular or plural, that were originally possessive, but are now generally written without an apostrophe, as in ‘a Woolworths store’ and ‘the Citizens Advice Bureau.’ Unfortunately, it is virtually impossible to predict whether a place or institutional name that features a final ‘s’ on one or more of its words should use an apostrophe or not because there is considerable inconsistency, with ‘Offa’s Dyke,’ ‘All Souls College,’ ‘St James’s Palace’ and ‘Johns Hopkins University’ all being correct. In such cases, it is wise to determine via a little research (using web sites, publications or correspondence) which forms are used by the places themselves.
Particularly unusual is the addition of ‘se’ to indicate possession, but this is how the genitive of the relative pronoun ‘who’ is formed, as in ‘the man whose dog was lost.’ ‘Whose’ can also serve as the possessive of ‘which,’ and can, in fact, produce a more elegant construction than ‘of which’ does: ‘the tree whose branches broke in the storm,’ for instance, instead of ‘the tree of which the branches broke in the storm.’
When forming the possessive case of compound nouns or ‘of’ phrases, the possessive indicator should be added after the last noun, using both an apostrophe and an ‘s’ if that noun is singular, as in ‘my daughter-in-law’s party’ and ‘the Queen of England’s doctor,’ but an apostrophe alone if it is plural, as in ‘Medieval Studies’ programmes’ and ‘the president of the United States’ speech.’ For a set of linked nouns, the apostrophe and ‘s’ should be added only after the last noun if the nouns are acting together in terms of meaning, as is the case with the joint authors of a single piece of writing or the joint owners of property: ‘Smith, Jones and Taylor’s book,’ ‘Beaumont and Fletcher’s comedy’ and ‘my sister and brother-in-law’s business.’ If, however, linked nouns are acting separately, the apostrophe and ‘s’ should be added to the end of each of the nouns, as in ‘Smith’s and Dobson’s different studies on the subject,’ ‘Sidney’s and Shakespeare’s sonnets’ and ‘my sister’s and brother-in-law’s perspectives differ.’
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