Genitive

I want to ask you both about the written and spoken forms of the following nouns in the genitive:

a) "Gladys's book" or "Gladys' book". Are they the same?

b) In the play "The Comedy of Errors" there are two characters called Antipholus. Since it's a Greek name, I assume that I cannot have "Antipholus's". Is this so? Since these are two brothers, if I want to talk about their mother, what should I say: "Antipholus' mother" or "Antipholi's mother"?

Thanks,

Frank

a) I'm not sure what you mean, Gladys as a plural or singular? But I think that form "Gladys's book" cannot exist. It is just difficult to pronoun.
b) I'd write: "Antipholus' mother" for expressing that she's their mother.

a) is pronounced Gladys's but should always be written Gladys'
b)Again it is written Antipholus' mother and pronounced Antipholus's.

Although it is kind of strange having two brothers with the same name. Is this their surname? If so, perhaps it would be better to refer to them by their first names.

a) Whether or not you should write Gladys's or Gladys' is not quite defined. I'm looking at "The College Writer's Reference" and it says that Gladys's is perfectly acceptable. Native speakers (Americans, at least) were taught in our grade school years to form the possessive of words ending in -s with just an apostraphe. This was, in my opinion, a teacher's shortcut. This is the problem with an unregulated language: you get all these disagreements and there is no definite authority to consult! Logically, there's no problem with Gladys's!

>>Native speakers (Americans, at least) were taught in our grade school years to form the possessive of words ending in -s with just an apostraphe.<<

Same as in the UK.

>>Logically, there's no problem with Gladys's<<

Sure there is, it's a waste of an S! Lol.

I what Aaron wrote also goes in Australia.

You would definitely not pluralise "Antipholus" like this considering that it's a Greek not a Latin name.

The genitive form for James is just as confusing as that for Gladys (has anyne ever met a Gladys???) In this city the street signs vary.....one says St James' Place and another St James's Square, so take your pick, both are accepted as correct, at least by the Edinburgh City Council.