There’s an apostrophe battle brewing among grammar nerds. Is it Harris’ or Harris’s?

Holly Ramer, Associated Press

(AP) — Whatever possessed Vice President Kamala Harris to prime Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz arsenic her moving mate, it astir apt wasn’t a desire to inflame arguments astir apostrophes. But it doesn’t return overmuch to get grammar nerds fired up.

“The little nan stakes, nan bigger nan fight,” said Ron Woloshun, a imaginative head and integer marketer successful California who jumped into nan fray connected societal media little than an hr aft Harris selected Walz past week to connection his return connected jealous due nouns.

The Associated Press Stylebook says “use only an apostrophe” for singular due names ending successful S: Dickens’ novels, Hercules’ labors, Jesus’ life. But not everyone agrees.

Debate astir jealous due names ending successful S started soon aft President Joe Biden cleared nan measurement for Harris to tally past month. Is it Harris’ aliases Harris’s? But nan action of Walz pinch his sounds-like-an-s surname really ramped it up, said Benjamin Dreyer, nan retired transcript main astatine Random House and writer of “Dreyer’s English: An Utterly Correct Guide to Clarity and Style”.

Dreyer was inundated pinch questions wrong minutes of nan announcement, which came while he was astatine nan dentist.

“I was like, ‘All right, everybody conscionable has to chill. I’ll beryllium location successful a small while and I tin get to my desk,’” he said.

While location is wide statement that Walz’s is correct, disorder persists astir Harris’ vs. Harris’s. Dreyer’s verdict? Add nan ’s.

“To group nan ’s is conscionable simpler, and past you tin return your valuable encephalon cells and use them to much important things,” he said.

Woloshun chimed successful pinch a akin sentiment connected nan societal level X, wherever apostrophes are being thrown astir for illustration manus grenades. “The norm is simple: If you opportunity nan S, spell nan S,” he argued.

That puts them connected nan aforesaid broadside arsenic The New York Times, The Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal — and astatine likelihood pinch AP.

While AP style has evolved connected galore fronts complete nan years, location are nary contiguous plans to alteration nan guidance connected possessives, said Amanda Barrett, AP’s vice president for news standards and inclusion.

“This is simply a longstanding argumentation for nan AP. It has served america well, and we’ve not seen immoderate existent request to change,” she said. “We do cognize that nan speech is retired location and group make different choices erstwhile it comes to grammar, and that’s each fine. Everyone makes a prime that useful champion for them.”

Timothy Pulju, a elder teacher successful linguistics astatine Dartmouth College, said that until nan 17th aliases 18th century, nan jealous of due names ending successful S — specified arsenic Jesus aliases Moses — often was simply nan sanction itself pinch nary apostrophe aliases further S. Eventually, nan apostrophe was added (Jesus’ aliases Moses’) to denote possession, though nan pronunciation remained nan same.

“That became benignant of nan modular that I was taught and adhere to, moreover though successful retrospect, I don’t deliberation it’s a awesome standard,” he said.

That’s because linguists position penning arsenic a practice of speech, and reside has changed since then. Pulju said he expects nan ’s shape to go ascendant eventually. But for now, he — on pinch nan Merriam-Webster dictionary — says either measurement is acceptable.

“As agelong arsenic group are communicating successfully, we opportunity connection is doing what it’s expected to beryllium doing,” he said. “If you tin publication it whichever measurement it’s written, past it seems for illustration it’s moving for people. They’re not getting confused astir whose moving mate Tim Walz is.”

If she wins successful November, Harris would go nan 4th U.S. president pinch a past sanction ending successful S and nan first since Rutherford B. Hayes, who was elected successful 1876 — 130 years earlier nan founding of Twitter — and was spared nan societal media frenzy complete apostrophes. Harris is nan first nominee pinch specified a tricky past sanction since 1988, erstwhile Democrat Michael Dukakis mislaid to George H.W. Bush.

Dukakis, now 90, said successful a telephone question and reply Monday that he doesn’t callback immoderate akin chat erstwhile he was nan nominee. But he agrees pinch nan AP.

“It sounds to maine for illustration it would beryllium s, apostrophe, and that’s it,” he said.

The Harris campaign, meanwhile, has yet to return a clear position. A property merchandise issued Monday by her New Hampshire squad touted “Harris’s affirmative vision,” a time aft her nationalist property agency wrote astir “Harris’ seventh travel to Nevada.”