Thread:Navid 1600/@comment-4322356-20160216162936/@comment-25390652-20160216164637

I'll try to make it clear: For the possessive of singular nouns ending with just one s (sounded as /s/ or /z/), there are three practices:
 * 1) Add 's: James's house, Sam Hodges's son, Jan Hus's life, Vilnius's location, Brahms's music, Dickens's novels, Morris's works, the bus's old route.
 * 2) Add just an apostrophe: James' house, Sam Hodges' son, Jan Hus' life, Vilnius' location, Brahms' music, Dickens' novels, Morris' works, the bus' old route.
 * 3) Add either 's or just an apostrophe, according to how the possessive is pronounced:
 * 4) *Add only an apostrophe if the possessive is pronounced the same way as the non-possessive name: Sam Hodges' son, Moses' leadership;
 * 5) *Add 's if the possessive has an additional /ᵻz/ at the end: Jan Hus's life, Morris's works.
 * 6) *Some possessives have two possible pronunciations: James's house or James' house, Brahms's music or Brahms' music, Vilnius's location or Vilnius' location, Dickens's novels or Dickens' novels.

Apply just one of these three practices consistently within an article. If the third practice is used and there is disagreement over the pronunciation of a possessive, the choice should be discussed and then that possessive adopted consistently in an article. (Possessives of certain classical and biblical names have traditional pronunciations that may be deemed to take precedence: Jesus' answer and Xerxes' expeditions, but Zeus's anger; and in some cases—particularly possessives of inanimate objects—rewording may be an option: the location of Vilnius, the old bus route, the moons of Mars.)