Is there a rule regarding the pronunciation (or lack of) of the apostrophe?
I have seen this on tv:
"Enchantress' wrath" pronounced as "Echantresses wrath"
"Gus' schedule" pronounced as "Guses schedule"
According to that the following examples should be pronounced the same:
Jones's car as "Joneses car"
Jones' car as "Joneses car"
Just to make it clear, this is not a question regarding the use of the apostrophe, it's one regarding the apostrophe's pronunciation.
Best Answer
Firstly, with regard to spelling: "Today it is no longer considered incorrect to use either form (Jones's or Jones') ".
Secondly, ncsu ties together pronunciation and spelling to a limited degree:
This is in answer to the question:
This article says that you can choose between the addition of the bare apostrophe or the apostrophe s in these cases, but that this then dictates how the resultant should be pronounced. Yet another rule dropped from on high.
This article from Grammar and Style in British English implies that there is a rigorous connection between pronunciation and written form; it recommends that you should decide whether one pronunciation sounds more reasonable, and choose the spelling to correspond as closely as possible. For Jones' / Jones's and Wales' / Wales's, it implies there is no obviously better choice:
Ultimately, one has to decide whether one is sufficiently pro-'Joneses' to read out Jones' as 'Joneses', etc. In a sense, 'only read the form Jones's as 'Joneses' is prescriptivist. One faces a very similar problem when quoting a passage with alternative spellings one doesn't use, when quoting passages using different spellings, when reading out 'Wagner conducted the Wagner piece' ...