Whatever possessed Vice President Kamala Harris to pick Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz as her running mate, it probably wasn’t a desire to inflame arguments about apostrophes. But it doesn’t take much to get grammar nerds fired up.
“The lower the stakes, the bigger the fight,” said Ron Woloshun, a creative director and digital marketer in California who jumped into the fray on social media less than an hour after Harris selected Walz last week to offer his take on possessive proper nouns.
The Associated Press Stylebook says “use only an apostrophe” for singular proper names ending in S: Dickens’ novels, Hercules’ labors, Jesus’ life. But not everyone agrees.
Debate about possessive proper names ending in S started soon after President Joe Biden cleared the way for Harris to run last month. Is it Harris' or Harris's? But the selection of Walz with his sounds-like-an-s surname really ramped it up, said Benjamin Dreyer, the retired copy chief at Random House and author of “Dreyer’s English: An Utterly Correct Guide to Clarity and Style”.
Dreyer was inundated with questions within minutes of the announcement, which came while he was at the dentist.
“I was like, ‘All right, everybody just has to chill. I’ll be home in a little while and I can get to my desk,’” he said.
While there is widespread agreement that Walz's is correct, confusion persists about Harris' vs. Harris's. Dreyer's verdict? Add the ’s.
“To set the ’s is just simpler, and then you can take your valuable brain cells and apply them to more important things,” he said.
Woloshun chimed in with a similar opinion on the social platform X, where apostrophes are being thrown around like hand grenades. “The rule is simple: If you say the S, spell the S,” he argued.
That puts them on the same side as The New York Times, The Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal — and at odds with AP.
While AP style has evolved on many fronts over the years, there are no immediate plans to change the guidance on possessives, said Amanda Barrett, AP’s vice president for news standards and inclusion.
“This is a longstanding policy for the AP. It has served us well, and we’ve not seen any real need to change,” she said. “We do know that the conversation is out there and people make different choices when it comes to grammar, and that’s all fine. Everyone makes a choice that works best for them.”
Timothy Pulju, a senior lecturer in linguistics at Dartmouth College, said that until the 17th or 18th century, the possessive of proper names ending in S — such as Jesus or Moses — often was simply the name itself with no apostrophe or additional S. Eventually, the apostrophe was added (Jesus' or Moses') to denote possession, though the pronunciation remained the same.
“That became kind of the standard that I was taught and adhere to, even though in retrospect, I don’t think it’s a great standard,” he said.
That’s because linguists view writing as a representation of speech, and speech has changed since then. Pulju said he expects the ’s form to become dominant eventually. But for now, he — along with the Merriam-Webster dictionary — says either way is acceptable.
“As long as people are communicating successfully, we say language is doing what it’s supposed to be doing,” he said. “If you can read it whichever way it’s written, then it seems like it’s working for people. They’re not getting confused about whose running mate Tim Walz is.”
If she wins in November, Harris would become the fourth U.S. president with a last name ending in S and the first since Rutherford B. Hayes, who was elected in 1876 — 130 years before the founding of Twitter — and was spared the social media frenzy over apostrophes. Harris is the first nominee with such a tricky last name since 1988, when Democrat Michael Dukakis lost to George H.W. Bush.
Dukakis, now 90, said in a phone interview Monday that he doesn't recall any similar discussion when he was the nominee. But he agrees with the AP.
“It sounds to me like it would be s, apostrophe, and that’s it,” he said.
The Harris campaign, meanwhile, has yet to take a clear position. A press release issued Monday by her New Hampshire team touted “Harris's positive vision," a day after her national press office wrote about “Harris' seventh trip to Nevada.”
This story has been updated to correct that Harris would be the fourth president with a last name ending in S, not third and that Dukakis lost in 1988, not 1984.
FILE - Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris and her running mate Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz arrive at a campaign rally in Philadelphia, Tuesday, Aug. 6, 2024. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke, File)
FILE - Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris and her running mate Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz arrive for a campaign rally in Philadelphia, Tuesday, Aug. 6, 2024. (AP Photo/Joe Lamberti, File)
FILE - Supporters carry signs as Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris speaks at a campaign rally, Saturday, Aug. 10, 2024, in Las Vegas. (AP Photo/Julia Nikhinson, File)
NEW YORK (AP) — Sean “Diddy" Combs was arrested late Monday in New York, where he faces a sealed criminal indictment, prosecutors announced late Monday.
Details of the charges weren't immediately announced by prosecutors, but the hip-hop mogul has faced a stream of allegations by women in recent months who accused him of sexual assault.
The U.S. attorney in Manhattan, Damian Williams, said in a statement that federal agents arrested Combs. “We expect to move to unseal the indictment in the morning and will have more to say at that time.”
Combs' lawyer, Marc Agnifilo, issued a statement saying: “We are disappointed with the decision to pursue what we believe is an unjust prosecution of Mr. Combs by the U.S. Attorney’s Office.”
He added that Combs had gone to New York last week in anticipation of the charges being brought.
“He is an imperfect person, but he is not a criminal,” Agnifilo said.
Combs was arrested in a Manhattan hotel lobby and is in federal custody, said a person familiar with the arrest who spoke with The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly.
The criminal charges are a major but not unexpected takedown of one of the most prominent producers and most famous names in the history of hip-hop.
The federal investigation of the 58-year-old Combs was revealed when Homeland Security Investigations agents served simultaneous search warrants and raided Combs' mansions in Los Angeles and Miami on March 25.
His defense attorney Aaron Dyer the day after the raids called them “a gross use of military-level force,” said the allegations were “meritless,” and said Combs was “innocent and will continue to fight" to clear his name.
Combs, then known as Puff Daddy, was at the center of the East Coast-West Coast hip-hop battles of the 1990s as the partner and producer of the Notorious B.I.G., who was shot and killed in 1997. But like many of those who survived the era, his public image had softened with age into a genteel host of parties in Hollywood and the Hamptons, a fashion-forward businessman, and a doting father who spoiled his kids, some of whom lost their mother in 2018.
But a different image began emerging in November, when his former protege and girlfriend, the R&B singer Cassie, became the first of several people to sue him for sexual abuse with stories of a steady stream of sex workers in drug-fueled settings where some of those involved were coerced or cajoled into sex.
In her November lawsuit, Cassie alleged years of abuse, including beatings and rape. Her suit also alleged Combs engaged in sex trafficking by “requiring her to engage in forced sexual acts in multiple jurisdictions” and by engaging in “harboring and transportation of Plaintiff for purposes of sex induced by force, fraud, or coercion.”
It also said he compelled her to help him traffic male sex workers Combs would force Cassie to have sex with while he filmed.
The suit was settled settled the following day, but its reverberations would last far longer. Combs lost lingering allies, supporters and those reserving judgment when CNN in May aired a leaked video of him punching Cassie, kicking her and throwing her on the floor in a hotel hallway.
The following day, in his first real acknowledgement of wrongdoing since the stream of allegations began, Combs posted a social media video apologizing, saying “I was disgusted when I did it” and “I’m disgusted now.” Cassie’s lawsuit was followed by at least a half-dozen others in the ensuing months.
In February, a music producer filed a lawsuit alleging Combs coerced him to solicit prostitutes and pressured him to have sex with them.
Another of Combs’ accusers was a woman who said the rap producer raped her two decades ago when she was 17.
Another woman who filed a lawsuit, April Lampos, said she was a college student in 1994 when she met Combs and a series of “terrifying sexual encounters” with Combs and those around him began that lasted for years.
Combs and his attorneys denied nearly all of the lawsuits’ allegations.
While authorities did not publicly say that the lawsuits set off the criminal investigation, Dyer said when the warrants were served that the case was based on “meritless accusations made in civil lawsuits.”
The AP does not typically name people who say they have been sexually abused unless they come forward publicly as Cassie and Lampros did.
As the founder of Bad Boy Records, Combs became one of the most influential hip-hop producers and executives of the past three decades Along with the Notorious B.I.G. he worked with a slew of top-tier artists including Mary J. Blige, Usher, Lil Kim, Faith Evans and 112.
Combs’ roles in his businesses beyond music — including lucrative private-label spirits, a media company and the Sean John Fashion line — took major hits when the allegations arose.
The consequences were even greater when the leaked beating video emerged. Howard University cut ties with him, and he returned his key to the city of New York at the request of the mayor.
Dalton reported from Los Angeles.
FILE - Sean "Diddy" Combs arrives at the LA Premiere of "The Four: Battle For Stardom" at the CBS Radford Studio Center on May 30, 2018, in Los Angeles. (Photo by Willy Sanjuan/Invision/AP, File)
