Only HN could get from API to the Greengrocer's Apostrophe.

There is no fully agreed upon means make words ending s (x or z) into possessive - the below site gives example of Dumas' and Dumas's as valid.

My general response has been if it looks ok with just an ' leave it and move on. I can open my own shop with the left over apostrophes.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apostrophe#Nouns_ending_with_si...

Thanks, interesting reading.

Still, I prefer my rendition. The problem here is the incompatibility between the rules of pronounciation -- French permits silent letters to end a word, English in general does not. In translating to English you must choose either to honour the French or the English rules of pluralisation and possession.

Because I don't write many English sentences with de la, du or d', I figure that sticking to the English rule is the best move.

Well in all fairness, outside of La Francophonie, "Jacques" is not a common name. And for English speakers it's just chock full of exciting traps. My favourite is putting 'c' and 'q' next to each other. In French that's a single sound; in English it says "new syllable, please!

edit:

> Jacqueses! (Jacuqi?)

Jacqueses would be closest (-ii is a Latin pluralisation, Jacques comes from Jacob which is Hebrew).

There's an impedance mismatch here: English stores plurality in the word, French stores it in the sentence.

I do think he is from Dutch origin though (Because he talked in the past about one of his experience with QNX in the Netherlands)

Dutch is correct.

I was under the impression he was Belgian.

Ha yes, also possible :)

Would a good translation of La Francophonie be "the French-speaking world"?

It'd be clearer, but much less fun to put it that way :D