My English isn't so good

[ChrisA Edwards]

So let me first state, I'm 64, grew up in England and moved to America in 1982, so English is my first language.

I'm making small wooden Christmas gifts for friends and neighbors. On each I'm personalizing it with their name, such as for me 'The Edwards'.

In my case I don't need an associative plural, e.g. my neighbor's last name is White, so theirs will be "The White's".

Two of these, I'm not sure how to apply the associative plural, so looking for guidance.

Hernandez
Mathis

[Jack Frederick]

This sent me back to my freshman years ‘66 Harbrace College Handbook grammar text. I have driven my children and now my Grandchildren crazy with it. Nothing definitive on “associative,” but this internet thing can have your eyes rolling in different directions in no time. My best guess, and it is a guess, is ‘es on each. Perhaps in conversation with the H’s & M’s you can work the question into the conversation. With that British inflection in your speech and the question of proper grammar they will not be surprised at the question and they will answer it for you. Please let us know how it goes.

[Ed Mitchell]

English is my 2nd language, so I'm just hoping to learn from this thread. My lame understanding of the language has me thinking that
The Edwards'
is an example of possession, no? You're saying some specific item belongs to the Edwards? As in, "Those things don't belong to you, they are the Edwards'"
If you just wanted to say
The Edwards
as in, "Hey, this family is the Edwards family"
wouldn't it be correct to omit the trailing ' ?

[Nathan Johnson]

English is my 2nd language, so I'm just hoping to learn from this thread. My lame understanding of the language has me thinking that
The Edwards'
is an example of possession, no? You're saying some specific item belongs to the Edwards? As in, "Those things don't belong to you, they are the Edwards'"
If you just wanted to say
The Edwards
as in, "Hey, this family is the Edwards family"
wouldn't it be correct to omit the trailing ' ?

Correct. The apostrophe denotes possession.
So...The White's is incomplete. The White's what? What do the Whites possess?

[Gary Ragatz]

Same age as you, but grew up in the States. For the White family, I would write "The Whites." Wasn't sure from your original post whether the other family's last name is Edward or Edwards. If the latter, I would write "The Edwardses" - seems a little awkward, but I think it's correct. If it's not a possessive, I don't think the apostrophe should be used.

My suggestion is to adjust the personalization (if you have the space) to "The Edwards Family."

[Matt Day]

I’d ask the Edwardses what they’d prefer.

[Stan Calow]

We've gotten used to the frequent incorrect usage for years as in " the 70's " instead of the correct " the '70s ". And now it has tainted everything else.

[Prashun Patel]

I agree a gift with "The Edwardses" just feels awkward, so I'd drop the 'es' and the 'the' and use the singular form:

Edwards

or

White

Or go over the top:

The Edwardses' Box

[ChrisA Edwards]

Ok, so I may have screwed up on the first few I made, but this gives you an example of what I'm doing and trying to achieve (this is not finished yet).

[Rich Engelhardt]

I'd just drop the word "The" from it and just use the last name.

[Stan Calow]

Or, "The White Family"

[Kev Williams]

Been doing this a long time myself. And my name is a good example: just saying the words "The Williams's" and other such names just sounds horrible. To me anyway ...

SO- for ALL personalization engraving I do, I suggest this format:

The Williams Family

No worrying about the stupid apostrophe, and no one has ever objected that I can remember

(Stan beat me to it by 10 seconds )

[roger wiegand]

It's really not complicated. The apostrophe is _only_ used to indicate a possessive. So it would be the "The Whites" unless you were talking about" the White's house".

When the name ends in an "s" you'd write "The Jones" or for the possessive "the Jones' house".

[Zachary Hoyt]

Maybe with it being written on a box the implication of the apostrophe is that the box (and presumably any contents thereof) pertain to and are possessions of the White family. If that was the intention then the apostrophe seems to me to be at least reasonably grammatical, but I never went to school so I have no real idea.

[Edwin Santos]

It's really not complicated. The apostrophe is _only_ used to indicate a possessive. So it would be the "The Whites" unless you were talking about" the White's house".

When the name ends in an "s" you'd write "The Jones" or for the possessive "the Jones' house".

It can get complicated.

"The Whites" is a count noun and when referring to a family it would be plural not singular. Because the count noun ends in an "s", the correct form would be "The Whites' house".
The way you show it above as "The White's house" is a singular possessive.
Maybe it would make sense if it were referring to the house belonging to only one member of the White family, but even this would be unusual albeit technically correct.

But I think we agree that for the gift no apostrophe should be used.