Ned Carlson wrote:
wrote:
Where there is some discussion is if the given name already ends with S.
Eg JAMES'S PALACE
or JAMES' PALACE
But never JAMES PALACE
Can't agree on that. It's a palace or court named for St. James,
not possessed by St. James. Apostrophe indicates possession.
Ambassadors to Britain are appointed to the Court of Saint James, not
Saint James' Court. However, the official royal website calls the
palace, St. James's Palace.
Sorry, Ned, but if your analogy were correct, then St. Paul's Cathedral
would be St. Pauls Cathedral and, to go right back to the original
subject of this thread, the woods concerned were no more possessed by
St. John than the Palace possessed by St. James or the Cathedral
possessed by St. Paul!
In this sense, that the wood / street / catheadral is named after
someone, these are possessive nouns.
Sir Edmund Halley hardly possessed the comet that is named after him,
called Halley's Comet!
The fact that Ambassadors are appointed to the Court of St. James is
immaterial. That just happens to be the way it's written. Equally
gramatically correct (although not used, simply by tradition, not
because it's gramatically incorrect) would be "Ambassador to St. James'
Court".
The irony is that St. James was supposedly buried in Compostela, Spain,
and is one of the patron saints of Spain. In Spanish, he has
a special name, "Santiago". You'd think after defeating the
Spanish Armada, the royal house might have thought about renaming
the palace, huh?
Interesting!
--
Ned Carlson
SW side of Chicago, USA
www.tubezone.net
Marc.