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.
The scoring system 1100 may be generally controlled and coordinated by operating system software, such as Windows 95, 98, NT, 2000, XP, Vista, 7, 8, SunOS, Solaris, Blackberry OS, or other compatible operating systems. In Macintosh systems, the operating system may be any available operating system, such as MAC OS X. Keeping Up with the Joneses is a 2016 American action comedy film directed by Greg Mottola and distributed by 20th Century Fox.It was written by Michael LeSieur. Its story follows a suburban couple (Galifianakis and Fisher) who begin to suspect their new neighbors (Hamm and Gadot) are secret agents.
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
Slash or die 2 (itch) mac os. 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
Keeping Up With The Joneses Streaming
The Harrop‐Griffithses’ House
London, UK
References
1Hunter JM. Electronic manuscript submission to the BJA: keeping abreast of the times, or keeping up with the Jones’.
2003
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1 Comment
I fully endorse Harrop-Griffiths' view. There are very few singular nouns, common or proper, in English which end in 's'. Jones is one of them: 'lens' is another. The plural of lens is 'lenses'. The singular terminal 's' is so unwelcome to some authors that they even add an 'e' (= lense) to the word. I have not complied a list of such nouns, but perhapssomeone should do so. Blind mans room mac os.
Conflict of Interest:
None declared
Iowa should come with a health warning: ‘This state can seriously damage your waistline.’ I’ve been here a week and I’ve put on about a stone. Barbecue, hot wings, burgers, steaks, pancakes… Mmm… Iowa. I love it, but I could never live here: I’d eat myself to death in about a month.
Watch Keeping Up With Joneses
All the weight I lost due to my scrodged up sinus operation has come back with a vengeance. And who do I blame? Tamara Siler Jones, that’s who! Glas mac os. She, hubband Bill, the Kid, all the cats and Daisy the stinky Dawg, have made it their personal mission to ensure that I experience the best that Iowa has to offer. It’s been an absolute blast.
I’ve been out shooting replica double-action six shooters, colt .45 semiautomatics, and an Uzi. I’ve been all over Des Moines. I’ve spoken to a Lieutenant in the county sheriff’s office. I’ve eaten catfish, ribs, pancakes, and more red meat than any sensible person ever would. And I’ve loved every minute of it. OK, so I’m going to have to go on a Prune and Fig diet when I get home, but it’s worth it ;}#
And now I’m off to New York.
But I’m going to miss Iowa and the Joneses. They’re very, very cool people. Even if there is a preponderance of leg-hickies.