The following will not be gramatically correct if the LastName field
ends in "s" (or "z"):

This is to confirm receipt of payment for =ABFirstName=BB =ABLastName=BB
's tuition deposit.

If the LastName ends in an "s" or a "z" then I have to change the
apostrophe-"s" to just a plain apostrophe. I'm sure this will require a
coding solution in Visual Basic.

I'm sure this has come up before. Does anybody have a solution?

According to Strunk's Elements of Style, it is grammatically correct to add
apostrophe-s to show possession even if the name ends with "s".



" wrote:

The following will not be gramatically correct if the LastName field
ends in "s" (or "z"):

This is to confirm receipt of payment for «FirstName» «LastName»
's tuition deposit.

If the LastName ends in an "s" or a "z" then I have to change the
apostrophe-"s" to just a plain apostrophe. I'm sure this will require a
coding solution in Visual Basic.

I'm sure this has come up before. Does anybody have a solution?

Although I tend to aim for "Jones'" rather than "Jones's" I would not get
too concerned about a contentious area of English punctuation particularly
since the use of the apostrophe to mark a possessive is in itself arguably
incorrect if it does not replace an "e" in the original English possessive
case. I've yet to be faced with "z's" myself :-)

You are correct that there is no simple field-based solution. There are at
least four options:
a. fix the problem in your data source
b. output to a new document and use VBA or find/replace to postprocess the
output (can we always assume that it is OK to find "s's" and replace by
"s'", and "z's" by "z'" ?
c. use VBA and the MailMerge MailMergeBeforeRecordMerge event to add/remove
the "s" after the quote as required
d. use a DATABASE field to return the value you want.

For (a), you can consider either
- adding a new field to your data source with the complete text you want to
insert when you need Jones' rather than Jones, or
- adding a new field that flags when the surname ends in s or z, then use a
Word IF field to construct the correct result, or
- creating a view/query that does (a)

If you really want to pursue (c) or (d), please use Google Groups to search
this newsgroup for recent articles by me that discuss eithe rMailMerge
events or the DATABASE field.

Peter Jamieson

wrote in message
ups.com...
The following will not be gramatically correct if the LastName field
ends in "s" (or "z"):

This is to confirm receipt of payment for «FirstName» «LastName»
's tuition deposit.

If the LastName ends in an "s" or a "z" then I have to change the
apostrophe-"s" to just a plain apostrophe. I'm sure this will require a
coding solution in Visual Basic.

I'm sure this has come up before. Does anybody have a solution?