You settled this on page one. Did you keep it up on page four hundred?
Whether a name ending in s takes another s after the apostrophe, whether an abbreviated title carries a full stop, whether you write among or amongst: decisions with no right answer. Both sides of each are correct English. What is not correct is a manuscript that does it one way in chapter three and the other way in chapter nineteen, and no spellchecker on earth will mention it.
Try it freeYour majority is the rule.
The book's own habit decides which form is right
There is no house style to impose, so none is. Both sides are counted, the larger one is reported as what this manuscript does, and the smaller one is the list. A book that keeps to one of them from the first page to the last has nothing to answer for and is told so.
Only people's names, for the possessive
A plural noun takes the bare apostrophe and always did, so the ladies' coats and the Bingleys' carriage are not a house-style decision. The rule runs only over names the scan classified as people, which is what keeps a book full of plurals from being reported as a book full of mistakes.
Only titles that are abbreviations
Mr, Mrs, Dr, St, Rev and their neighbours can carry a full stop. Doctor, Captain and Professor written out in full cannot, so they are left alone. A title is only counted where a capitalised name follows it, which is the difference between St. Monica and Baker St.
The word pairs were counted before they were chosen
Among against amongst, while against whilst, toward against towards and the two ways of writing a trailing-off are here because real manuscripts make those decisions and then break them. Three other candidates were measured the same way and dropped: no book in the sample wrote both okay and OK, spaced and unspaced dashes split one book in thirty-eight, and grey against gray belongs to the spelling standard, which already carries it.
The ellipsis is recorded here and fixed on the typography check
It is a style-sheet decision and a typographic mark at once, so this report says which way your book writes it and the typography check holds the places. One report owns each fix: the typography check prefers the single character whatever a manuscript does, because it cannot break across a line, and this one follows whichever side your own book uses more. A book that mostly types three full stops would otherwise be told here that three full stops are its house style and told there to change every one of them.
Too even a split is reported as a split
A manuscript that is three-quarters one way has not settled anything, and naming the larger side as its house style would assert an intention the author never showed. Those rows say what the book does on each side and what settling either way would cost, and nothing is offered as a replacement: there is no house form to bring the other side to.
Where a house style slips.
A decision made in year one and forgotten by the rewrite in year three.
Two authors, two habits, one manuscript that has to pick.
Filling in the copy-editor's style sheet from what the book already does, rather than from memory.
Book two matching book one, on the details nobody writes down.
Questions about house style.
Is Thomas' wrong?
No. Chicago says Thomas's, several newspaper styles say Thomas', and both have been in print for a century. The report never says which to use; it says which one your book already mostly uses, and where the others are.
What about numbers, spelled out against figures?
Deliberately not included. Testing it against real books turned up contents pages, telephone numbers, citations and fractions rather than house style, and the same book in two file formats gave two different counts. A check that fires on things nobody wrote is a check you stop trusting, so it is not shipped.
Does it count possessives inside dialogue?
Yes, with everything else. The apostrophe on the page is one author's decision however the sentence is spoken, and no rule can tell the narrator from the voice.
Will it change my file?
No. Nothing in the product edits your manuscript, and your file is never stored. You get the count, the places and what to search for.
Other features.
Name shapes
Finds names that collide by shape: a crowded initial, a shared ending, a run of the same length.
Learn more →Last seen
Shows terms your draft establishes and then drops, and the ones it leaves for a long stretch.
Learn more →Story clock
Draws every expression your book uses to say when a scene happens, then lists them in book order.
Learn more →Find out what your book already decided.
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