There is some debate in various style guides as to how an apostrophe should
be used to indicate possession in words that end with "s". There are
currently two popular choices; one is to put an apostrophe after the "s", as
in James' (meaning "belonging to James"), the other is to add an extra "s"
after the apostrophe, as in James's.
We are Asterisk users, so our group is correctly named the Users Group (if
it was the "user" group, it would only represent one of us).
<pedantic-quibble>
"group" is a collective noun, like "family". User (in this context!)
is an adjective.
So "Asterisk User Group" is similar in structure to "Smith Family".
To say "The Smith Family" refers (collectively) to the members of
that family
To say "The Asterisk User Group" refers to the members of that group.
</pedantic-quibble>
Since the group
belongs to us, it is correct to use the apostrophe to indicate possession,
thus Users' is correct (or, if you'd like, Users's).
To me, typing James's or Users's simply looks awkward. We don't speak it
that way, so why write it so?
Yes, I agree, double-ick to anything ending in "s's", for Jim's reasons.
Unless there is a pressing argument otherwise, how about we settle on
"The Toronto Asterisk
Users' Group", allow in our formal style guide that it can be written
"Toronto Asterisk Users Group"
if you're in a hurry or your apostrophe key is broken, and move on to
more important
issues (like WRT54G model numbers :-)).
