21
The Confusing Roles of the Letter S
The letter s may be singlehandedly responsible for more errors in English than any other letter. The roundabout evolution of the English language has given this letter four special jobs—all of them integral to the language.
The letter s is used to
form plurals of nouns
form possessives of nouns
inflect verbs for third person singular subjects
contract the verbs is and has
The only way to avoid errors involving the letter s is to have a solid understanding of all these jobs.
The Letter S to Form Plurals
The plurals of most nouns are formed simply by adding s: one house, two houses; one dollar, a million dollars.
Nouns that end in s, sh, ch, x, and certain other sibilant sounds often form their plurals with -es: bosses, matches, taxes, bushes, and so on.
Many irregular verbs don’t use the s to form the plural: children, geese, criteria, men, and so on.
Other nouns, especially noncount nouns, don’t have a plural form or are already considered plural in form: politics, scissors, billiards, molasses, glasses, and so on.
The Letter S to Form Possessives
S is also the letter we pair with apostrophes to form possessives of singular nouns and plural nouns not ending in s:
the monkey’s paw
the company’s history
the media’s influence
the men’s department
Note how the s is used when forming the possessives of the irregular plural children but not the regular plural kids:
the kids’ play area
the children’s play area
Both these nouns are plural. They even mean the same thing. But because kids forms its plural the regular way, by adding s, but child forms its plural irregularly with the word children, different possessives rules apply.
Another complicating factor: for proper nouns ending in s, for example James, there are two ways to form the possessive—both of them legitimate. Some style guides say add both the apostrophe and the s after the last letter in the word: James’s friend. Others say to add only the apostrophe—James’ friend—even though their own rules say to keep the possessive s for common nouns. In those styles, boss’s role is written differently than James’ friend.
Old-fashioned stylists, most notably William Strunk and E. B. White in their Elements of Style, create special rules for ancient names like Jesus and words that end in sibilants like x and z. But rules like that are mostly obsolete.
To follow any one style with precision, you need to consult that style guide. But if you want an easy-to-remember guideline that’s always acceptable, opt for adding apostrophe plus s to form the possessive of every singular word:
the boss’s words
James’s words
Jesus’s words
Max’s words
Mrs. Chavez’s house
It’s never the wrong choice, and most would agree it looks better than dropping the s in the boss’ words.
Another curveball the letter s throws at us: pronouns turn the regular rule on its head. Possessive pronouns don’t have apostrophes, even though all but mine use s.
hers
yours
ours
theirs
its
whose
mine
Compare The bike is the girl’s to The bike is hers. The rule that requires the apostrophe in girl’s goes out the window when you represent that noun with the pronoun hers. Possessive pronouns like its and whose get confused with contractions. We’ll look at those below.
The Letter S to Conjugate Verbs in the Third Person Singular
English verbs don’t change much in their inflected forms. Setting aside the highly irregular verb be, verbs conjugated in the past tense are identical for every subject: I walked, he walked, we walked.
Only in the present tense do the verbs change form to reflect the number of subject and then only for one subject group: the third person singular.
I walk.
You walk.
He walks.
She walks.
It walks.
We walk.
They walk.
The verbs that change form do so by adding only one already overworked letter: s. In day-to-day usage, this poses no problem for most native English speakers. But there are a few instances in which folks tend to confuse the conjugated verb with a contraction. Most notable is let’s versus lets.
He let’s the cat out at night.
(Incorrect because the conjugated verb lets does not contain an apostrophe.)
For writers less skilled at using apostrophes, this mistake can occur with almost any verb (He think’s today is Saturday). But it is always a mistake to use an apostrophe to conjugate a verb.
The Letter S as a Contraction of the Verb Is or Has
Similar to our let’s and lets problem is confusion of whose and who’s and its and it’s.
Even people not prone to grammar errors sometimes incorrectly use who’s in sentences like Who’s phone is this? and incorrectly use whose in sentences like Whose there?
And even people not prone to grammar errors can incorrectly use it’s as a possessive, as in The dog wagged it’s tail.
It’s easy to see why: the apostrophe-plus-s combination we use to contract is and has is identical to the apostrophe-plus-s combination we use to show possession of most nouns. So it can seem downright odd that the possessives its and whose don’t take apostrophes.
The only way to avoid these errors is to stay vigilant.
The verbs is and has are among the handful of words in English that can be converted into contractions. In both cases, the contraction is apostrophe plus s, and it can be applied to almost any singular subject and some plural ones, too.
It’s raining today. = It is raining today.
Brienne’s in the house. = Brienne is in the house.
It’s been great seeing you again. = It has been great seeing you again.
Brad’s known about it for years. = Brad has known about it for years.
There’s a can of soda in the fridge. = There is a can of soda in the fridge.
The pronoun there can even be contracted with apostrophe plus s in contexts where it really means not there is but there are.
There’s some people here to see you. = There are some people here to see you.
This use of what is essentially a singular contracted verb (is) to correspond to a plural like people is somewhat controversial. But its use is so widespread that there’s no denying that there’s to introduce a plural is acceptable.