word choice - How to properly spell "belonging to a virus"?



In a SU topic about computer viruses I wanted to write a sentence starting with something like The ability of a virus to.... So I started writing A viruse's ability to... and realized that viruse's doesn't seem quite right. Nor does viruss' or anything else I can come up with. What is the proper way to write this word in this context?



Answer



It's virus’s. The word follows standard rules: if it’s a singular word (virus) add ’s; for a plural (viruses) just add the apostrophe.


The standard argument about using a periphrastic phrase for inanimate objects does not hold universally. One is just as likely to say “That car’s headlight is damaged” as “The headlight of that car is damaged”, and in fact the former may be more likely.


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