Hinter Thomas gehört noch ein Apostroph, ansonsten korrekt.

Absolut in Ordnung. Es fehlt lediglich der Apostroph für das ausgelassene Genitiv-s:

Ich bin Thomas' Lehrerin.

Danke, euch beiden. Ich hatte Angst, einen Deppenapostroph zu benutzen.

But in English, unless your style is very old-fashioned or the name is biblical or mythical, you need an S after that apostrophe, even if the name ends in S:


I am Julia's teacher.
I am Thomas's teacher.


In German, you can have either an S or an apostrophe in the possessive, but usually not both:

Ich bin Julias Lehrerin.
Ich bin Thomas' Lehrerin.



The Deppenapostroph is when you put an unnecessary apostrophe in a plural, in either English or German. Save apostrophes for possessives and omitted letters. (-:

I may be wrong (in fact I probably am if hm says so), but I believe I have been taught that the 's' after the apostrophe is optional when the name ends in 's', at least in BE. "Chris' book" and "Chris's book" would both be fine.

Could someone explain the rules to me again, please?

@Claire, you (and I) are right. You can write s' or s's as you wish. I checked it in the 'times writer's guide'

@ hm -- us.You write "In German, you can have either an S or an apostrophe in the possessive, but usually not both"

Can you define 'usually'? That is, can you give me an example of when you can have both in German?

Hi, Claire & Mini c. I'm not sure which Times guide you're referring to, but the one I found online seems to give the standard modern rule:

apostrophes - with proper names/nouns ending in s that are singular, follow the rule of writing what is voiced, eg, Keats's poetry, Sobers's batting, The Times's style (or Times style); and with names where the final “s” is soft, use the “s” apostrophe, eg, Rabelais' writings, Delors' presidency; plurals follow normal form, as Lehman Brothers' loss etc
Note that with Greek names of more than one syllable that end in "s", do not use the apostrophe "s", eg, Aristophanes' plays, Achilles' heel, Socrates' life, Archimedes' principle
Beware of organisations that have variations as their house style, eg, St Thomas' Hospital, where we must respect their whim.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2941-...

In particular, I take that last example to mean that the usual form is St Thomas's.

Just for good measure, I checked Fowler/Burchfield (Modern English Usage, 3rd ed.), which is one of the best BE authorities I know, and it's basically the same:

apostrophe - ...
D Possessives. ...
2 Personal names. Use 's for the possessive case in English names and surnames whenever possible; i.e. in all monosyllables and disyllables, and in longer words accented on the penult, as Burns's, Charles's, Cousins's, Dickens's, Hicks's, St James's Square, Thomas's, Zacharias's. It is customary, however, to omit the 's when the last syllable of the name is pronounced /Iz/, as in Bridges', Moses'. Jesus' is an acceptable literary archaism.
3 Classical names. In ancient classical names use s' (not s's): Mars', Herodotus', Venus'. Ancient names ending in -es are usually written -es' in the possessive: Ceres' rites, Xerxes' fleet. In longer words of this type, -es' should also be used: Demosthenes', Euripides', Socrates', Themistocles'.
4 French names. Those ending in s or x should always be followed by 's when used possessively in English. It being assumed that readers know the pronunciation of the French names (in Rabelais, le Roux, and Dumas, for example, the final consonant is left unpronounced), the only correct way of writing these names in the possessive in English is Rabelais's /'ræb@leIz/, le Roux's, /l@'ru:z/, Dumas's /'dju:ma:z/.

However, I should have said 'classical' instead of 'mythical,' sorry.

And mainly I was just being cautious in saying 'usually'; as a non-native speaker of German, I feel it's better to err on the side of caution than to give a possibly wrong answer.

Since I'm writing again anyway, though, I will mention the one exception to the usual German rule that I'm aware of, which is names that exist in two forms, one ending in -s and the other without. In that case, if I understand correctly, it's permissible to use 's to make it easier to see the difference at a glance:

Andrea's Mutter (die Mutter von Andrea)
Andreas' Mutter (die Mutter von Andreas)
Carlo's Taverne (die Taverne von Carlo)
Carlos' Hund (der Hund von Carlos)

See §97ff. in the latest NRS revision (beware, large .pdf, but it's worth bookmarking or downloading):
http://www.ids-mannheim.de/reform/regeln2006.pdf

Hope that helps. (-:

hm - - us: Thanks for the detailed research. It is the same Times guide, but I obviously didn't read it carefully - I just saw Thomas' and overlooked the bit about the whim. Won't happen again.

Thanks, hm!

Carlo's Taverne/Andrea's Mutter: ein klarer Fall von Deppenapostroph, auch wenn sein "gelegentlicher Gebrauch" in den IDS-Erläuterungen zur neuen deutschen Deppenortografie (Pardon: Orthografie) abgrenzungshalber und rein hypothetisch eingeräumt wird.

du hast absolut recht, aber dann auch:

othographie?!

wie kinematographie, photographie, katastrophie - entschuldigung, ist nur ein witz, um dein anliegen zu unterstützen. und ich wette, es merkt keiner! also, weshalb regen wir uns denn auf?

@ Nikolas: Du sprichst mir aus dem Herzen. Ein überflüssiger und irregulärer (da keine Auslassung anzeigender) Apostroph vor dem Genitiv-s ist und bleibt im Deutschen ein Deppenapostroph.

Die Erläuterung zu § 97 sagt nur: "Von dem Apostroph als Auslassungszeichen zu unterscheiden ist der *gelegentliche* Gebrauch dieses Zeichens zur Verdeutlichung der Grundform eines Personennamens vor der Genitivendung -s oder vor dem Adjektivsuffix -sch." (meine Hervorhebung)

Ich hege den Verdacht, dass diese Ausnahme nur deshalb zugestanden wurde, damit nicht mehr praktisch alle Schilder an kleinen Läden, Kneipen und Imbissbuden in Deutschland falsch geschrieben sind. Die Auswahl der Beispiele im Amtlichen Regelwerk ("Carlo's Taverne") und in den Erläuterungen des Rechtschreib-DUDEN zum Apostroph ("Andrea's Blumenecke" [zur Unterscheidung vom männlichen Vornamen Andreas], "Willi's Würstchenbude") ist jedenfalls bezeichnend!

Offenbar lässt die Einschränkung "gelegentlich" ja Raum für Interpretation. Über "Carlo's" vs. "Carlos"' und "Andrea's" vs. "Andreas"' könnte man von mir aus noch reden (Verdeutlichung der Grundform, obwohl die Grundform dem aufmerksamen Leser auch ohne Deppenapostroph deutlich wird), aber bei "Willi's" gibt es nun wirklich nichts zu "verdeutlichen".