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KING PELLINORE’S LITERARY MAGAZINE

Readers: Singular: Bloke. A bloke broke Jack's car. Plural: Blokes. Two blokes
broke Jack's car. Singular Possessive: Bloke's. Jack broke the one
bloke's nose. How are we doing so far?
Pellinore: Your example is a bit violent, but correct.
Readers: So, now we come to plural possessive.
Pellinore: You want to break the noses of both of the blokes.

Readers: We do. Plural Possessive: Blokes's's's ‐‐ oh dear.
Pellinore: Do not panic. In plural words ending in s, merely add the apostrophe.
Readers: Blokes'.
Pellinore: That is correct.

Readers: Jack broke the blokes' noses.
Pellinore: He did. First he broke the first bloke's nose. Then he broke then
second bloke's nose. At the end of the day, he'd broken both blokes'
noses.
Readers: But what if that's their name? You know, "Look, out, Jack, it's the
Blokes Brothers, Vinny Blokes and Tony Blokes, the violent sons of Mr.
and Mrs. Blokes!"
Pellinore: Don't let the final S throw you. Recall "Follow the rule whatever the
final consonant." Jack broke Vinny Blokes's nose. Then Jack broke Tony
Blokes's nose. He broke both of the Blokeses' noses. But, listen, listen,
I fear I'm losing you here. This kind of punctua on is a bit esoteric and
makes you look like you're showing off just to please your old Pellinore.
Readers: We are, you've caught us.
Pellinore: So, for the moment, concentrate merely on compaigning against the
use of the apostrophe to pluralize nouns, and that will be sufficient.
Confine our crusade for the moment merely to ge ng rid of
abomina ons such as "orange's, book's, and other thing's for sale" and
let us in this arena prevail!

Readers: We shall, we shall!
Pellinore: (shuffles off, proudly, humming the fourth movement of 'Der
Strunkenwhitenlieder') "Thus write, Charles's friend, Burns's poems, the
witch's malice.... "

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