Arkansas's Arkansawyers?

by Karl Kurtz

NPR had an amusing story on February 28, "Arkansans Quibble Over the Possessive 'S'," about a resolution sponsored by House Majority Leader Steve Harrelson specifying that the proper form of the possessive for the state's name is Arkansas's, not Arkansas' as prescribed by the AP's style guide. 

This story goes very nicely with Josh Goodman's recent posting in Governing's blog, 13th Floor, "What's Good for the Michigoose...," a wry treatise on the proper way to refer to the residents of certain states.  Disagreement about whether residents of Arkansas are properly "Arkansans" (pronounced like the residents of Kansas) or "Arkansawyers" comes up in both stories.

Arkansas Rep. Steve Harrelson, who is the subject of the NPR story, is one of the legislator bloggers whom we link to in the right column of The Thicket.  The only posting that I found on his web site about this topic is a short story, "Just a little fair warning," that links to 18 places (including the Manchester Guardian) where the AP story on his resolution appeared.

Comments

[Lurker]

For the record, I suggest getting your flags/coats of arms from the relevant Wikipedia articles, they're ALOT higher resolution and/or less copyrighted then some. They also seem to use less garish colors.

[Mat Jobs]

i didnt know people from arkansas are called arkansawyers... -_-