Evan Morris, normally the all-knowing proprietor of The Word Detective column, decided in the current (Oct. 26, 2003) column to bow to his superior when it came to the origin of “pompatus”.
Myself, I prefer Adams’s. In 7th-grade English I was violently forced to learn that you only ever use the s-apostrophe form for plural possessives, and never just for indicating possession by a single entity whose name happens to end in “s.” Thus, if I had said “Adam’s researcher” or “Adams’ researcher” instead of “Adams’s researcher” on a paper for that class, I would have been slain messily.
Later, I learned that 7th-grade English teachers will often make things seem much more absolute than they are in reality – many of the grammar guides I examined said that “Adams’ researcher” was fine. So alas, I’ve had to abandon my hard-line anti-s-apostrophe stance. But I still prefer to only see it used on plural possessives. It just feels more consistent.
J.K Fabian is Jane, and is definitely female. Jane was the very first board moderator Ed hired (drafted? tricked into slavery? :)) back on the AOL boards, and was our first board Goddess. I think that was in late ’96, but I could be mis-remembering.
TubaDiva was the next Goddess to join the ranks of the elevated (duped? suckered? severely taken advantage of? :)), and then the other mods and administrators, many of which came over here when the Reader pulled out of AOL and started this website.
I seem to remember that Jane modded here for a while, but most of her time seemed to be taken up assisting Unca Cec. At some point I believe her real life commitments caused her to pretty much withdraw from board life. I’m not sure to what extent she stills acts as an assistant for Cecil.
<< I believe her real life commitments caused her to pretty much withdraw from board life. I’m not sure to what extent she stills acts as an assistant for Cecil. >>
Not at all, anymore. Some of us are still in touch with her, because she’s a wonderful person with lots of talents.
Learn something new every day. I knew that Cecil used to have an assistant named Jane, and I knew that he had an assistant named J. K. Fabian, but I thought they were two separate people, and that Fabian was male. That’s the hazard of initials, I suppose.