British Journal of Anaesthesia, 2003, Vol. 90, No. 5 708
© 2003 The Board of Management and Trustees of the British Journal of Anaesthesia
Correspondence |
Keeping up with the Jones’ or Joneses?
London, UK
Editor—As a Welshman, I feel I must question the grammatical correctness of the title of your recent Editorial:1 Electronic manuscript submission to the BJA: keeping abreast of the times, or keeping up with the Jones’.
The plural of Jones is Joneses, -es being added as an indicator of the plurality of a word of which the singular form ends in s, as in dresses or messes. The apposition of the much misused apostrophe to the word Jones does not pluralize it. Although apostrophes should normally be used to indicate possession, their use to indicate plurality is acceptable, but only under certain circumstances (e.g. for numbers or individual letters). Examples might include the 1990’s (although most now prefer the 1990s), and phrases that would not make sense without the apostrophe, such as ‘there are three i’s in the word inhibit’. If possession was implied, for example if the understood full sentence might have been something similar to ‘keeping up with the Jones’ changes’, but the word changes was omitted, the title should have ended with the Joneses’, as it is always assumed that more than one Jones is involved.
It may be possible to argue that a final s had been omitted from the word Jones’s. This change is often made to words ending in s, as in the use of St Thomas’ Hospital in place of the perhaps more correct St Thomas’s Hospital. However, this would again imply a singular Jones.
In summary:
Mr and Mrs Jones = The Joneses
The house of Mr Jones = Mr Jones’(s) house
The house of Mr and Mrs Jones = The Joneses’ house
‘Keeping up’ with the practices or possessions of Mr and Mrs Jones = Keeping up with the Joneses
Yours, hopelessly lost in grammatical pedantry,
W. Harrop-Griffiths
The Harrop-Griffithses’ House
London, UK
References
1 Hunter JM. Electronic manuscript submission to the BJA: keeping abreast of the times, or keeping up with the Jones’. Br J Anaesth 2003; 90: 6–7
CiteULike 
Connotea 
Del.icio.us What's this?
This article has been cited by other articles:
|
|
 |
|
  H. F. Galley Volume 100: Editorials: What's in a name? Br. J. Anaesth., February 1, 2008; 100(2): 151 - 153. [Full Text] [PDF]
|
|
E-letters:
Read all E-letters
- Keeping up with the Joneses
- John F James
- British Journal of Anaesthesia, 16 May 2008 [Full text]
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||