Opinion Harris’ or Harris’s: In grammar war, hope for democracy

Trouble is brewing in the US ahead of the presidential elections and it has got little to do with ideology or politics. The two sides ranged on either end of the warring field are the apostrophe evangelists and the apostrophe anarchists, broadly categorised as sub-species of the grammar nerd. Their aim: A consensus on the proper use of the possessive when it comes to Democratic candidates Kamala Harris and her vice presidential nominee, Minnesota governor Tim Walz. The snag: The quirks of the English language, with its rich debts to Germanic and French roots, make it difficult to draw a defining line. In other words, where should the apostrophe be? Should it be Harris’ or Harris’s? Or, Walz’ or Walz’s?

The Associated Press Stylebook, the most commonly referenced media stylesheet, has clear directions for the use of the possessive. For singular common nouns ending in the alphabet ‘s’, add another one after the apostrophe (Example: dress’s). But when it comes to proper nouns ending in ‘s’, just an apostrophe is good enough (Example: Roger Waters’). So ‘Harris’ campaign’ would be just fine. Only, the anarchists beg to differ. An apostrophe hanging out alone in the end is a letdown of its very purpose, they claim. If one pronounces the ‘s’, why not just add it to the word — ‘Harris’s campaign’.

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Given how the evolution of the English language has come to break free of the Pareto principle — the law of the vital few holding disproportionate determining power — it makes sense to call for a time-out on this. The written word has always been guided by the spoken and if both usages manage to communicate their import, both ought to hold good. Harris’s campaign seems to think as much. According to media reports, her press releases have gone with both ‘Harris’’ and ‘Harris’s’. That’s one up for democracy.