Hacker News Reader

Comment by andrewtbham | Hacker News Reader

I misinterpreted the title. I read it like: "Consumer Reports: Tesla Model S has more than its share of problems" I didn't see the apostrophe and that changes the meaning from what I initially thought.

>Bear in mind that the experiences with our test cars are purely anecdotal and never factor into our reliability ratings. After all, it's a sample size of one.

View on HN

It's partially due to the incorrect syntax, should be "Consumer Reports's"

I doubt that there's a single professional editor or author of a guide to English usage or style who would agree that it should be "Consumer Reports's".

Here's a discussion about the topic: http://forum.wordreference.com/showthread.php?t=29285

Edit: Actually, it's not just an issue about the proper noun ending in "s", but the proper noun ("Consumer Reports") is actually using a plural noun, reports. For the case of making a plural possessive, most would agree that you just add an apostrophe without an additional "s" (s' rather than s's).

It's not incorrect syntax; indeed, while the preferred method of showing possessives where the possessing noun ends in an "s" is is a stylistic issue that is subject to much debate, most of the rules that I can find suggested now would find "Consumer Reports'" to be the correct form, not "Consumer Reports's".

[1] Eg, this source ( http://www.grammarbook.com/punctuation/apostro.asp ) reports several rules that are in use for singular and proper nouns (see Rule 1c): 1. Add just an apostrophe after the "s" for any word endign in "s" 2. Add an apostrophe and an "s" to a common noun ending in "s", but just an apostropher to a proper noun ending in "s". 3. Write the word as we speak it. Further, in Rule 2a: regular nouns that form plurals with "-s" or "-es" just get an apostrophe (no extra "s").

Consumer Reports is a proper noun formed from the plural form of a common noun that is pluralized by adding an "s", so all those (except perhaps "write as you speak", and then only if you'd say "Consumer Reportses" for the possessive form) support adding a bare apostrophe rather than apostrophe plus s.

For a better treatment, I turned to The Chicago Manual of Style (sixteenth edition), used by the vast majority of publishers of American English books. It says in Section 7.19 to omit the s "...when the name of a place or an organization or a publication (or the last element in the name) is a plural form ending in s, such as the United States, even though the entity is singular."

And cites these as examples:

the United States' role in international law

Highland Hills' late mayor

Callaway Gardens' former curator

the National Academy of Sciences' new policy

Reply on news.ycombinator.com