Location: Riverside Drive Burger King parking lot; Danville, VA
Picture taken: February 2008
Textual representation of image: “Thomas Taxi”
Finally, we got a picture of this one! The taxi-sign debacle was one of the very first errors we saw that made us say, We really should take a picture of that! Mr. Hawke reminded me of this as we were looking through the folder full of Grammar Police pictures I haven’t yet posted.
To my knowledge, Thomas’ Taxi was for a long time the only taxi service in our relatively small city. (City-Data.com cites a July 2006 population of 45,586, down 5.8 percent since 2000.) To be completely upfront, though, my knowledge of the taxi services in Danville doesn’t run deep. Other than seeing the cars around town, I’ve called a taxi two or three times for (too-drunk-to-drive) patrons of restaurants I worked in years ago. Oh, and one of the bartenders at one restaurant always used the taxi service to get to and from work. That’s about it.
But there’s no getting around the fact that Thomas’ Taxi is in desperate need of an editor. The sign on the car above is only one of the two poorly worded signs on cars around town. The other one, which I will get pictures of if I’m ever able, is much more nose-crinkling: “Thoma’s Taxi.” :P
Onward to the problem! The sign on our picture here is clearly missing an apostrophe. The word “Thomas,” a proper noun referring to a person (last name or first? I’m not sure…), and the “Taxi” belongs to this person. The apostrophe, which should follow the final s, shows possession. Since the word Thomas ends in s already, we just need to add an apostrophe.
Rule: To make a noun ending in s possessive, add an apostrophe. (And to make a noun ending in anything else possessive, add an apostrophe and an s).
Note: Many sources claim that an apostrophe and an additional s should be added to a noun ending in s if an extra syllable is pronounced (as in our example, which would be pronounced Thomas-es). However, both strategies are acceptable; just be consistent.
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