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Bechtel, John Hendricks, 1841-

"Slips of Speech : a Helpful Book for Everyone Who Aspires to Correct the Everyday Errors of Speaking"

The sign should therefore read:
Men's and Boys' Shoes.
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Singular Nouns
All nouns in the singular form their possessive case by adding the
apostrophe and the letter s; as, child's, girl's, woman's, bird's,
brother's, sister's, judge's, sailor's.
When the noun ends in s, sh, ch, ce, se, or x, the additional s makes
another syllable in pronouncing the word; as, James's, Charles's,
witness's, duchess's, countess's, Rush's, March's, prince's, horse's,
fox's. In poetry the terminal s is sometimes omitted for the sake of
the meter.
While writers differ, the tendency in modern usage is toward the
additional s in such expressions as Mrs. Hemans's Poems, Junius's
Letters, Knowles's "Virginius," Knox's Sermons, Brooks's Arithmetics,
Rogers's Essays.
By long-established usage such expressions as for conscience' sake,
for righteousness' sake, for qoodness' sake, for Jesus' sake, have
become idioms. Some authorities justify the omission of the possessive
s when the next word begins with s, as in Archimedes' screw, Achilles'
sword.
Plural Nouns
Most nouns form their plurals by adding s or es to the singular.


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