The new City of Johns Creek

I look forward to voting for the council members for the new City of Johns Creek, Georgia, next week. Our new city was chartered by the Georgia General Assembly in HB 1321 earlier this year. One thing that bothers me about the name of the city is that they have completely dropped the possessive. The city is named after John’s Creek, a stream that runs through what used to be John Roger’s property. So the name of the city should be John’s Creek.

I have never understood why possessive apostrophes are hard for people. If the name does not end in S, simply add an ‘S to the end. If a name does end in S, add a single trailing apostrophe (') to the end. Oh well, the rest is an argument for the grammarians. I will just have to be content with the copy of Patricia O’Conner’s Woe Is I that my mother gave me for one of my birthdays.