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What would be the correct possessive form of address? I was working on a project, and one of the error messages was

You can't spoof the address' domain

A colleague of mine pointed out that this isn't how it's supposed to be spelled, and suggested address's. That looks odd to me, so maybe it could be addresses, but that's also the plural.

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  • In other languages, such as German, it is acceptable to drop the additional s if the word already ends in s. Not sure if that is the origin of your confusion.
    – painfulenglish
    Commented Aug 18, 2014 at 8:44
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    Different style guides have different preferences when possessing words in -s. Most would prefer your colleague’s way; some would prefer yours.
    – Janus Bahs Jacquet
    Commented Aug 18, 2014 at 11:42
  • This may only work if you're a native English speaker, but I understood the rule to be that it is written as one would say it, i.e. "the peoples' domain" and "the address's domain"
    – dumbledad
    Commented Mar 15 at 9:28

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Your colleague is correct.

However, if you still don't feel comfortable with it, you can get around the issue with a simple rewording:

You can't spoof the domain of the address

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  • @painfulenglish - I assume you meant to direct that comment at the OP...?
    – Erik Kowal
    Commented Aug 18, 2014 at 8:25
  • you are right, sorry about that.
    – painfulenglish
    Commented Aug 18, 2014 at 8:43

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