Apostrophe

Dear Shirley: I see lots of people using the apostrophe like this:

Iris' report (shouldn't it be Iris's report?)
The princess' tiara (shouldn't it be princess's?)

Can you clarify this for me please?

Shirley Says: You are absolutely right. Let's imagine it was a report written by John. We would make it John's report - the name John followed by apostrophe s. So if the report belongs to Iris, then surely it would be better to do the same - the name Iris followed by apostrophe s - so it becomes Iris's report. The same with princess. The tiara belongs to the princess, so let's put apostrophe s on the end and make it The princess's tiara.

Here are some more examples:

My boss's office (the office belonging to my boss, singular)
My 3 bosses are in a meeting (bosses is the plural of boss)
Douglas's visit to the Philippines went very well.
Mark's wife had her baby last week.

I hope this helps.

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