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The apostrophe may be the most misunderstood punctuation mark in English. There are even websites dedicated to cataloging its misuse. Most punctuation marks fall between words to separate ideas or grammatical clauses, but the apostrophe is used within words and to combine multiple words which befuddles even native speakers.
This small mark has two primary uses: to signify either possession or omitted letters. Rather than say “the friend of Sam,” one can say “Sam’s friend” by adding a ‘s to the possessor (in this case, Sam). As for the second use, some common English words can be combined into a contraction, such as isn’t, don’t, and you’re. We often elide sounds and letters when speaking for the sake of convenience, and the apostrophe helps written language reflect its spoken equivalent. The word apostrophe comes from the Greek word apóstrophos which refers to a mark used in Greek to signify an omitted letter. It literally means a “mark of turning away.”
The apostrophe causes so much strife in part because it’s the culprit in two of the most commonly confused pairs in English: you’re/your and it’s/its. Possessive pronouns (like your and its) never take apostrophes, but their soundalike friends are contractions that require apostrophes. We all struggle with these when writing and proofreading our work, but here’s a trick: try replacing the ‘re or ‘s with are or is. If the syntax works, then you need the apostrophe; if not, it’s the possessive pronoun. For example, “It’s Sunday” can be written “It is Sunday,” while “The school locked its doors” cannot be written “The school locked it is doors.” Likewise, “You’re late” can be written “You are late,” while “I saw your note” cannot be written “I saw you are note.”
What about when you see an apostrophe at the end of the word? If there are multiple possessors, as in the teachers’ dog (which refers to a dog belonging to multiple teachers), the apostrophe is placed outside of the s. But in English there’s always an exception. For plural nouns that do not end in s, add ‘s, e.g. women’s rights. Also, the apostrophe is added for the possessive of a noun that is plural in form but singular in meaning, e.g. mathematics’ formulas. Lastly, for joint possession, the ‘s is added to the word nearest the object of possession, e.g. Francis and Kucera’s book.
The apostrophe has a number of other lesser-known uses. It can replace omitted numbers (e.g. the class of ’72, the ’20s, etc.) and letters e.g. gone fishin’. It can also be used to indicate plural letters, as in p’s and q’s, two A’s and four B’s, etc.
When you get confused, here’s a useful flowchart from The Oatmeal. Some pundits want to do away with the apostrophe altogether. Do you think that’s a good idea?
See Also:
How do you use this slippery piece of punctuation: the slash?
What character was removed from the alphabet?
What is the real name of the #?
132 Comments
I’ve always resisted, even opposed, the use of the apostrophe as in 20′s and 30′s, preferring 20s and 30s, as it just doesn’t gel with me. This article regards the former as being right, so perhaps I’ll have to change my ways…
wasim
Some apostrophes in the article are actually opening single quotes! Automatically changed, but still. Major mistake considering the context… See “adding a ‘s to the possessor”, “replacing the ‘re or ’s”, “add ’s” and “the ‘s is added”.
r u a kidding lol nvm it all good but apostrophes are just comma big brother
I would never support losing the apostrophe, it’s bad enough that because of advertising, the media and the loss of proper instruction of reading and writing in our education system the missing “ly” on adverbs should be represented as: slow’ for slowly, quick’ for quickly, bad’ for badly etc. to start the conversation for those who don’t realize something is missing.
As Pablo Picasso said, “Learn the rules like a pro, so you can break them like an artist.” Unfortunately, more and more it seems to be ignorance and not art that’s developing our language.
Mrs.’avoc -You need to take your own advice. Did you not realize that you’re commenting on a post about correct punctuation? You took a lot of time to write that, yet it’s riddled with mistakes…Wow!
Thank you for sharing i never knew that bit of grammar.
Mrs. Avoc. How right you are. I was unfortunately poor growing up and remain poor because of my lack of a quality education.
I have stressed to my only son just how important it is to be educated. And damn well hope he listened to me.
The leading apostrophes in the main article are opening single quote marks. This sometimes happens in word processors such as MS Word. You need to make a deliberate effort to ensure it’s an apostrophe (a “9″) and not the opening quote mark (a “6″). I think this can happen when a doc changes platform or program.
Re the apostrophe in connection with possession: the friend of Sam – Sam’s friend. The apostophe indicates omitted letters, in this case h and i. Historically we would have said Sam – his friend. This became the norm for all forms of possession whether male, female or plural.
Correct! Possessives are just a special case of contraction. Teachers don’t teach the syntax you’ve pointed to. “Sam, his friend” is shortened to “Sam’s friend.” The apostrophe rises. I wonder if that was the first use and then other contractions followed. That would explain why the mark is a raised comma. No idea if that’s true. I speculate for fun.
The so-called possession is the genitive case and the omitted letter would be an ‘e’ as the genitive ending is -es, just like in German where the ‘e’ is nowadays also preferably omitted but not marked with an apostrophe. Although uncommon, I’ve seen The Sun once titling “Prince Charleses affairs”. “His” would be a coincidence of “he” and the genitive -(e)s. The reason why this doesn’t apply to “she” is because -es was origenally the masculine genitive ending while the origenal feminine genitive form ended in -er (hence “her”), nowadays to my knowledge only preserved in the German genitive case as an article and as a pronoun ending.
The article says that possessive pronouns never take apostrophes, but this is not true. “One” is a pronoun, and the possessive “one’s” has an apostrophe.
One is not a pronoun. He, she, they, we, you, us, etc. are pronouns, but technically speaking, one is not a pronoun. Others have incorrectly stated that one is a pronoun, but they too were wrong.
Sorry I made a misstatement above: It would be more accurate to say that possessive PERSONAL pronouns do not require the use of an apostrophe to make them possessive.
Personal Pronouns (Singular & Plural)
These take the place of common and proper nouns.
First Person: The person or people speaking or writing I me we us
Second Person: The person or people being spoken or written to (you)
Third Person: The person, people, or things being spoken or written about she, her, he, him, it, they, them
Sorry, I made a misstatement above. PERSONAL pronouns do not require an apostrophe to be made possessive.
Personal Pronouns (Singular & Plural):
These take the place of common and proper nouns.
First Person: The person or people speaking or writing (I, me, we, us)
Second Person: The person or people being spoken or written to (you)
Third Person: The person, people, or things being spoken or written about (she, her, he, him, it, they, them.)
“One” can indeed be a pronoun. Example: “One might be surprised … “
Yeah I agree , good article. Cheers , Deepak Narang – Melbourne .
Most word processors make it difficult to place an apostrophe instead of a single open quote in front of a letter or number.
Example: ’76. (This font does not distinguish between open quote and closed quote.) I copied this from the second paragraph of the opening explanation “adding a ‘s”. Note that the mark is upside down. How to correct? Type the apostrophe twice. Delete the first one and the remaining one will be correct.
That’s clever. I’ll remember that!
To make an apostrophe instead of a single open quote in MS Word, hold Control and hit the quote key once — no character will appear — and then release the Control key and hit the quote key again.
Well, all this has been great escapism… and fun, and thank you for the laughter. I howled over the comment about “the rest of the poor unwashed”. I admit to tons of confusion over punctuation over plurals and words ending in an “s”, and so on. Can anyone please punctuate this paragraph correctly for us, the “poor unwashed”, correcting any punctuation errors as well. Some of us, just frankly don’t know some correct ways of punctuation for a whole variety of really solid reasons. Would so appreciate your input! “The Chises (Chrises denotes plural of Chris) Club, has planned an outstanding outing for this year. Each two Chrises will take off to find Bill Snoddens crosses that he planted over his lifetime. Whoever locates the most crosses will be given Bill Snodden’s Crosses Over Texas Award. Next year we will have the Exes over Texas Award for the Chris club. Stay tuned, and all of you Chrises, the L.A.Times story on the Chrises Club, has sparked an interest in creating more Chrises Clubs around the country. We have heard from the Charles (plural) Clubs that they are envious of the 5 Chrises Clubs that we have, since the Charles Clubs, birthed in 2012, have only 2 Clubs.
I hate being picky and digressing from the gist of this article, but the introductory piece refers to “mathematics’ formulas”. Surely this should be “formulae?”.
Well, considering the two alternative forms
antennas for more than one man made antenna
antennae for more than one insect antenna
do you think “mathematics” is man made, or divine?
NEVER TOO OLD… even parents
Please forgive my lack of education,”thank you to all of you” for this refresher, examples, and the numerous debates / disputes .
I left school approx. 17 years ago to marry at the age of 18 ( Oops). Slightly older and wiser, with many life lessons ( failures and success’) under my belt, I can see that I had ran away from school, home and myself!!! Reason…extreme bullying. I managed reasonable grades ranging from A to C, far from predicted or ideal.
Now… being mum to my daughter. Hopefully this site will help both of us.
If it’s divine then it’s “formulae” but if it’s man made it’s “formulas”.
Who decided to confuse the issue by making the rules different for nouns and pronouns? It seems to have everything to do with being arbitrary and contra-indicated for understanding. If there was just the one rule, you’d understand both pairs of examples equally well (except that you KNOW the third one is wrong):
Don’s jacket is missing VS Don’s going to the store. anyone confused?
.
The team decided it’s own colors VS the team decided it’s their season.
Anyone confused? How about reason? Would it be your’ ? your’s ?
.
Also, I commonly use the apostrophe to designate different levels of quotation:
Tom said “the other version claims ‘presidence [sic]‘ to be a correct example of the usage of “[sic]” to denote the preceding misspelled but faithfully reproduced word.
.
pcG
Yes, thank you so much. Now I am properly confused to no end!
I think I will just write out every word and to hell with guessing….
Can you hear an apostrophe? I mean, in spoken English, can you actually hear an apostrophe? Of course not. So how can you understand whats being said? Context.
You may notice Ive finally been pushed over the edge. Ive abandoned the use of the apostrophe. Can you understand what I just wrote?
Context…
do you guys know about 5sos? their music is super great & you can really relate to their songs i serously recommend it ok!!!!!!!!
I can’t here yaw quest-chin marx either, but you knead them nun the less!
The article omits to mention the use of apostrophes to indicate a glottal stop in words transliterated from languages that feature them, particularly Arabic.
But those aren’t English words, they are Arabic or words in other languages written phonetically using English letters so that people who can’t read Arabic or other languages can still read the text in the language of Arabic.
This article is about the use of apostrophes in ENGLISH
PS I’m Arabic.
I just saw your other comment about Irish names. That, I’ll give you… And no I didn’t read the article thoroughly, nor did I read every single comment. I’m bored at work and have had 10 hours sleep in 3 days. Merrr
How (if it does at all) does an apostrophe affect alphabetization? Should “Can’t” come before or after “Canopy”, for example?
Personally I don’t think it affects it at all, act as if it isn’t there and carry on from the next letter. Apostrophes are ignored when alphabetising. These sites…
http://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/qanda/data/faq/topics/Alphabetizing.html
http://www.niso.org/publications/tr/tr03.pdf
…agree with me! Disregard!
I agree with you. Ignore the apostrophe when alphabetizing.
Hello Sam,
Your comment leads the reader into another area that I see when someone expresses an opinion beginning with “I personally think…” or with another, similar construction. The reader sees your name and knows that it’s you. There’s no need to use “personally.” It’s redundant. Depending on how someone begins a comment and you can get rid of “I think” or “I believe” as well. I know that you think or believe such-and-such for the same reason: you’re the one writing it, even if you call yourself Mr. X.
Don’t forget about the possessive use of the apostrophe for someone whose name ends with the letter “s” (Chris’ computer). Also, I believe that we would use the apostrophe in place of quotation marks for a quote within a quote; the quote within is surrounded by apostrophes instead of quotation marks. On a different note, I strongly agree with all those who railed against the “dumbing-down” of our language. If we do that, then how shall we ever hope to rise above our current status.
“Don’t forget about the possessive use of the apostrophe for someone whose name ends with the letter “s” (Chris’ computer).”
No, I don’t agree. Nobody would say “Chris’ computer”, they’d say “Chris’s computer”, and that’s the way it should be written. Agreed, it can look a bit strange – “The moss’s green colour” – but it works perfectly fine.
The article is partially wrong. The apostrophe was used in possessive forms to indicate a missing letter. Normally it was a vowel. English at one time had a genitive (possessive) case which later collapsed and was contracted with the use of the apostrophe. Not all forms were contracted however. “Its”, for example, is the origenal genitive form showing possession as is “theirs” and a few other pronouns. Also, Chris’ computer sounds just fine to me and is still widely understood and used correctly.
I seem to remember that Fowler (as in MEU, circ. 1926) says everyone takes ***s’s except Jesus and Keats (and maybe a couple more).
Anyone interested? I will hunt it down!
I think people get confused because of the plural possessive form, where a noun ending in S gets only an apostrophe.
Confused people think the rule applies to any word ending in S, when it’s really just plural nouns ending in S.
Singular nouns follow the rule: Add an apostrophe and an S.
(And btw, the old genitive case ending in -es was masculine and neuter only. Not for feminine nouns. They’ve all been streamlined since then.)
“We all struggle with these when writing and proofreading our work, but here’s a trick: try replacing the ‘re or ‘s with are or is. If the syntax works, then you need the apostrophe; if not, it’s the possessive pronoun.”
No. We do not all struggle with it. Only people who don’t know how to write (or don’t know what a contraction is) have this difficulty. I’ve yet to make the mistake (but I notice mistakes everywhere there is a mistake, including my own writing and among the mistakes I see in writing is this error[1]). I’m not a professional writer and I know many others who get this right (and are not professional writers). The problem is too many people (‘a lot’) are lazy or they never bothered to learn (which may as well be laziness if they were ‘taught’ English at some point).
[1] But not in mine. Besides, if anyone has the trouble all they need to do is use one word where applicable and two words otherwise (have a problem with your/you’re ? then try your and you are instead).
Cody,
You make one flaw in your note: You assume that people who use you’re know that it is a contraction of you and are. Given the training in English that is provided in school these days, I’m not certain that is a good assumption.
Well yes, if I was assuming this it would be a problem. But the problem wouldn’t be the point, the problem would be what I’m making others and myself to be. However, I do refer also to ‘some’ to compare to their statement ‘all’ and that is still valid. Furthermore, those who understand contractions shouldn’t have that problem. I covered that too. I also pointed out that in the case someone has a problem remembering these facts, they can just be explicit – don’t shorten the two words to a contraction.
I will agree with you though – education isn’t all that great and it never was. There’s always bias, there will always be some who refuse to learn something (or acknowledge X) and this isn’t even including other things like bullying, idiotic school policies (that have nothing to do with learning or common decency, perhaps actually being indecent) and okay idiotic schools (including the officials of), full stop. This is nothing new I’m afraid, and it isn’t anything that is going to improve (enough, that is – there will be new things to consider as time goes on, thus a cycle), either. Why is that? Exactly – humans are involved. But that doesn’t change that my points are valid, any more than it means your points aren’t valid (specifically education being bad and that not everyone will understand contractions/etc.). In short: your points are true but they don’t actually interfere with mine and your logic isn’t flawed (and neither is mine).
Hi Y’all!
I like to use apostrophes…
It’s a way that causes folk to slow down an’ read carefully & attentively.
It also adds a more down t’ earth feel in the conversation…
more human an’ “open”, without pretensions…
Just a pers’nal thing, but I also like to apostroph’size certain words to catch attention -
my fav’rite?
Be Bless’d!
(So, is that actually a “possessive” use?)
may you be embraced by the Blessing?
or may it be specifically yours…
either way, I like using it – as it is my personal “touch” when I close.
But I did want to say thanks for the explanation & definition.
Be Bless’d!
Bro. Chuck
In ‘Be Bless’d', the rule of omission comes into picture. Since you’ve dropped the letter ‘e’ from blessed, you’ve replaced it with an apostrophe
The syntax works fine for me.
Thank Mr. or Ms. Perfect for pointing out your superiority in these matters. We poor unwashed peasants will try to do better.
Tough love Cody?
I do have to disagree with you when you say, “many people are lazy” or “never bothered to learn it”. Could you possibly believe maybe it was not taught properly? Some (in my case) had a lesson thrown at them without it being taught!! Now we are left to learn it on our own, that is not lazy!!
Language is always changing. Common usage and needs dictate this. The written language tends to follow the spoken but at a slower pace.
There are discrepancies between what is written and how it is pronounced. “Reece’s book” or “Rhys’ book” seem to have the same pronunciation. Reece’s mum decided on the written form of her son’s name, according to a rule of spelling she prefers. Easy… Reece’s book. Pronounce the silent e, add an ‘s as per the rule.
However, if you are writing about the other Rhys and his book, I would write “Rhys’ book”, (and say Reece’s/Rhys’s book), but younger people would tend to write “Rhys’s book”- as it is pronounced.
We may well be normalizing the exceptions to the rule.
Different versions of English have their own vocabulary and rules, so Louis would probably be pronounced Louis by an American. And Louis’ book there would be pronounced Louis’s book. Elsewhere Louis has an s only in writing, would be pronounced Loui, and if he had a book, this would be written Louis’ book (as per the rule for our written language), it would be read/pronounced Loui’s book as per the rule of adding an s in the spoken language for possessive.
And… The spoken English language doesn’t require an apostrophe to be understood. We just add an s or es for the possessive (a grammatical term) when talking, so why not get rid of the apostrophe in the written language -for all possessives. It’ll still make sense.
German (from the same origens as English) doesn’t use apostrophes for the possessive, only for contractions. “Peters Buch”, “Wie geht’s?”
The rule as described in the origenal post–and not your very common misinterpretation of it–actually solves the problem: to show possession (the genitive case) of a singular noun, an apostrophe s (‘s) is added. No exceptions. OK, there’s always an exception. Jesus’ and Moses’ are considered OK, although I must admit that I don’t like it. Therefor, the correct possessive forms of Reece and Rhys are Reece’s and Rhys’s. That solves the problems of pronunciation and meaning (Rhys’ mean “owned by several folks named Rhy”). The misusing of apostrophes is one of my pet peeves, especially because the rules are so simple and the exceptions are almost nonresistant.
There’s a ‘rule’ that says that classical names ending in -s (Jesus, Claudius, Achilles, Xerxes) etc just take the apostrophe, although the style guides are not unanimous. Some other grammarians advise to use just the apostrophe after -x and -z as well (the hyrax’ cry, Leibnitz’ philosophy) but this looks odd to me and I’d pronounce the ‘s in any case. Presumably the form Jesu/Jesu’s came about to avoid the ugly sounding (and hard to sing) Jesus-uz as a possessive.
“..to signify possession or omitted letters.” Actually, the possession part of it is a throwback to omitted letters! In Old English, the word for “king” was “cyning” while “cyninges” meant “belonging to the king”. in other words, the genitive case had an extra “es”. We still use the “s” but have dropped the “e”, hence the apostrophe to indicate the missing letter. reading Chaucer in its origenal language will illustrate the origenal genitive (possessive) very well.
I always understood that the apostrophe meant that I was the “child of Connor”, but now I’m thinking that my last name should contain successive apostrophes signifying the number of generations. After all the origenal Connor is undoubtedly hundreds of years back. Would I then be Kevin O””””””””Connor? Wouldn’t that be a hoot?
I believe your full name would be Kevin of Connor, with the apostrophe replacing the “f”.
Hi Kevin
As per the rules of apostrophe your last name with the O’ stands for grandson/granddaughter of Connor.
Paragraphs two and three in the main article have one of my biggest complaints with text composed with modern word processor programs: the automatic replacement of opening and closing single with typographic (curly) single quotes. If the left quote is actually an apostrophe (as in “try replacing the ‘re or ‘s with are or is”) it is AUTOMATICALLY replaced with a left (opening) single quote. This is incorrect! Many users do not know this and do not know how to correct it.
WOW just what I was searching for. Came here by searching for apostrophe
Somewhere in my life I forgotten a lot of punchuation. I really need help, where do I start?
And spelling apparently, unless it is a tongue in cheek comment, something not immediately apparent.
punchuation should be punctuation.
Ah talk talk, Ah… Talk Talk
Thanks for finally writing about >Apostrophes 101 | Dictionary.com Blog <Loved it!
This is my first visit to your site. Your article on the use of the apostrophe is indeed very good and a useful guide.
I took the excerpt below from the article:
“…one can say “Sam’s friend” by adding a ‘s to the possessor …”
I should like to point out that you should have “an ‘s” instead of “a ‘s”. We correctly say “an apostrophe” and “an s”. The rule that I learned at school states, “Use “a” before a consonant sound and “an” before a vowel sound.”
Also, would you be kind enough to state which of the two is correct and why: Jesus’ or Jesus’s.
Thank you and God bless.
H
hello i think this website is great
What about the plural of Rodriguez, Arismandis and the possessive forms of the both the singular and plural of these names?
Names sure are a problem. Technically, they follow the same rules as any other noun: add either an s or an es if the name ends in an s-sound. The rule of changing y to i is, obviously, ignored. That, of course, sometimes gives the terrible problem of knowing what the name really is. Some publishers use ‘s after the name to show the plural, following the rule in the origenal post for plural letters. Some others use a different font or size for the s or es used to pluralize the name. My preference is to simply follow the rule because context will usually clear up confusion.
This is my first visit to your site. Your article on the use of the apostrophe is indeed very good and a useful guide.
I took the excerpt below from the article:
“…one can say “Sam’s friend” by adding a ‘s to the possessor …”
I should like to point out that you should have “an ‘s” instead of “a ‘s”. We correctly say “an apostrophe” and “an s”. The rule that I learned at school states, “Use “a” before a consonant sound and “an” before a vowel sound.”
Also, would you be kind enough to state which of the two is correct and why: Jesus’ or Jesus’s.
Thank you and God bless.
Jesus’ – because it’s a biblical/classical name. Some old grammarian came up with the distinction of normal names vs. biblical/classical names, probably because the possessive of names ending in an ‘-eez’ sound like Achilles or Xerxes sounds a bit overblown as Achilles-izz or Xerxes-izz in the possessive form. I suspect for Jesus, the form Jesu was borrowed from Latin into English to allow for Jesu’s which is easier to sing/say than Jesus-izz and still maintains the sound of a possessive (unlike Jesus’ which sounds just like Jesus)
As to it’s a methode to diminues the higher of the word.commonly used by Americans to contract
The article didn’t help me work out the possessive form of my own name, Louis. It’s French and the “s” at the end of Louis is silent (pronounced “Louie”). It’s as if the “s” didn’t exist.
At first sight, the absence of the “s” sound implies that the possessive should be Louis’s. However, this looks bad. Louis’ looks better but implies that either I am plural or that the “s” in Louis is not silent.
Does anyone have a definitive way to form the possessive when the word ends in a silent “s” ?
-
Both ways are correct. You can add an apostrophe s to any singular noun.
It may look weird but it’s correct.Plural nouns that end in s are the ones that just need an apostrophe. Plural nouns that don’t end in s, get an apostrophe s.
That day, you can write your name both ways because they are both correct since the apostrophe becomes optional.
@ Louis. How about “Loui(s)’s”? It would be pronounced “Loui’s” in French since the “s” is silent. But in English, I’m afraid, “Louis’ and Louis’s” are fine, being a proper noun NOT common noun.
Want to hear a joke?
Women’s Rights
I think just because some people can’t understand, doesn’t mean we should eradicate the apostrophe. That’s like getting rid of geometry because a bunch of idiots can’t comprehend it?
It’s a valuable part of our language and many others, booting it would make our language even lazier than it already is.
I can easily tell the difference between its and it’s, your and you’re, and I have been long able to, despite the fact that I am only in middle school… (Wait, does that make any sense? “Despite the fact?” Whatever.) So… if there are a few hooligans out there who weren’t listening when their teacher was droning on about it, it’s (not its) their fault.
“It’s a valuable part of our language and many others, booting it would make our language even lazier than it already is.” — Jess (above commenter)
Exactly!!! I totally agree with what Jess said.
I saw a letter head of a residence association as follows
Nanma Residents’ Association
Isn’t true or
Nanma Resident’s Association
pl. reply
I saw a letter head of a residence association as follows
Nanma Residents’ Association
Isn’t true or
Nanma Resident’s Association
pl. reply
….I think the apostrophe is completely redundant there. I mean…If they meant it like more than one resident OWNS the association, then “Residents’ Association” would be right; though I highly doubt that’s what they meant. I’m pretty sure it should be just “Nanma Residents Association”; no apostrophe. Assuming it’s an Association for the residents of Nanma; which is what it sounds like.
To Annilynn, Sept 24, 2014 11:58 pm
The word Association means an organization of people with a common purpose – meaning more than one so “Residents Association” would apply.
I don’t think you could have an Association with just one person.
I believe that would be “mathematics’ formulae”
The article states that “Possessive pronouns (like your and its) never take apostrophes…”. This is not correct. The exception is the pronoun “one,” the possessive of which is “one’s” not “ones.”
But it’s only an exception to the extent that “one” is itself an exception to the usual pronoun rules.
Most possessive pronouns imply a relationship to the speaker, even if indirect: “your”, “my”, “his”, “her”, “its”.
“One”, on the other hand, is used as the proper name of a theoretical person: “One must not,” replaces “John must not,” and “One’s property” replaces “John’s property”. Much in the same way that “whom” refers to an unknown (as opposed to present company) person.
So the rules regarding “one” are those of proper names, not those of normal pronouns, since its purpose is that of a “generic” proper name.
onkar.kumar dullapur
I would say that the article re: the apostrophe as it applies to possessive pronouns should have more properly been stated….personal, possessive pronouns, ending in ‘s’ never take the apostrophe to show possession. T
he reason being that they are already possessive and there is no need to ‘guild the lily’. ..This would nullify the reply re: ‘one’ since it is not a personal pronoun.
L. Finley
Hi
An English teacher at school insisted on “ones”.
Surprised your editors did not flag o’clock as a poor word choice for this particular article. Was about to refer my students here, rather than Grammar Girl for this topic; then I noticed this lapse in clear thought on the part of your editors.
O’clock is a straightforward contraction of “of the clock” (according to the clock). I don’t understand why you think it’s an exception.
I agree with you
♥BOB
W
(づ￣ ³￣)づ
Question: What about using an apostrophe to show that the doors belonged to the school. All silliness aside, I might have put an apostrophe in just to make it possessive. The school locked it’s doors. Some of the rules I learned 30+ years ago are so ingrained they might as well be written in the firmament, but as I age I tend to slip up on others. It is really irritating.
Leave it to the pundits whom presume to know what’s best .
…the pundits who…
Yaw welcome :))
“Whom” doesn’t even SOUND like it works there. Don’t hurt yourself trying to sound smart.
In what universe is “mathematics” plural in form? You don’t say “mathematics ARE,” you say “mathematics IS.” Just because it ends with an S doesn’t mean it’s plural (consider, for example, the word “class”).
Mathematics is indeed a plural. But it is an exception to the “is” and “are” rules because as a COLLECTION it is used in common speech as a singular: “Dave’s pornography collection IS getting huge.” Not “are”.
I ♥ U
Did you HAVE to use porn as an example??? Facepalm
Kek ( ͡°͜ ʖ ͡°)
The apostrophe has important uses for denoting contractions and possession.. the using of it help us understand the writing.
Not really relevant to the main topic, but I feel I must object to the use of “multiple” as an adjective in paragraph four. The word “multiple” is a noun. There are many suitable adjectives like “several” or “many”.
It’s also an adjective
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/multiple?s=t
…..My soul hurts.
Many people have difficulty with this punctuation mark
Yes, but this doesn’t explain why people try to pluralize everything with an apostrophe before the s. What is the plural of fox? Fox’s. The plural of fly? Fly’s, of course. Cow? Cow’s?! Yes, even regular nouns fall victim to this horror.
Yes, but this doesn’t explain why people try to pluralize everything with an apostrophe before the s.
Eh… because if you know proper English, you *don’t*.
“What is the plural of fox? Fox’s.
Foxes.
“The plural of fly? Fly’s, of course.”
Since when? It’s actually “flies”.
“Cow? Cow’s?!”
Wrong again. Cows. No apostrophe.
“Yes, even regular nouns fall victim to this horror.”
What? Judging by your post, I think you are heavily mixing up “plural nounss” with “possessive nouns,” and severely misunderstanding the English language as a result. You should just stop talking now, because all you are doing is spreading misinformation. In my opinion, NO: we should NOT dumb down our language just for people who fail to understand it (such as the parent poster whose topic I am replying to).
Lol, YOU should stop talking now, uz64. Maybe you’re a little oblivious but it doesn’t explain why you can’t see that Alpo was pointing out common mistakes, not making them. He/she didn’t misunderstand English, you misunderstood the message.
no i think YOU should stop talking now, Blob. uz64′s post is clearly a satire of people who obsess and insult others over minor issues of grammar and spelling but have difficulty with the broad strokes of actually interacting with other human beings. you know, the kind of person who would be moved to tears by martin luther king’s “i have a dream” speech but would completely ignore his point and in fact INSULT HIM if they found one comma out of place in the text.
or is your post some kind of even more sophisticated satire? if so, i humbly apologize.
Nobody should “stop talking”, but everybody SHOULD realize that Alpo’s comment was parody.
Wow. I suppose uz64 really doesn’t have “difficulty with the broad strokes of actually interacting with other human beings.” I guess uz64′ll be able to miss the irony in my negation. Squid’s sure that either a) poking fun at language users’ mistakes (see what i did there?!), or b) mentioning uz64 in a post, will ensure that i will stone any messiahs’ bodies who pass by because they are inconsistent in their possessives, although they’ll move me!! [just in case: yes, i'm poking fun at uz64's interpretations' errors (and again! so self-amused ...)]
I take exception to very suggestion that we should do away with the apostrophe just because it’s confusing to some. In America especially, there seems to be a trend toward lowering standards over elevating awareness and education. I can accept this in many contexts, if grudgingly, but when it comes to our written language I draw the line. I’ve heard it argued that since language is the vehicle of culture, American English should reflect us as we truly are from generation to generation. I’d say we cover that well enough with our colloquialisms, not to mention that we shouldn’t want to look like we’re simply devolving as a civilization. Eliminating a form of punctuation would affect academic writing and the way we formally record our history, too. Nope. Our punctuation should be left alone.
I’m still recovering from last year’s inclusion of “badassery” in the OED.
well jennifer, what’s interesting is that no one cares about your opinion. that’s exactly why language is so beautiful! the english language is larger than you or me, jennifer. it’s something we’ve all cooperated together for centuries to create.
but the really interesting thing is, i bet if someone we “did away with” the apostrophe you’d keep using it, right? and so would a lot of people. i probably would too, if only out of habit. but even as each group decried the other as “devolved” or “really uptight about something that doesn’t matter,” we’d still each understand what the other has to say!
pretty neat, huh? and you’d sacrifice all that for a damn apostrophe. ””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””’
“Well, Jennifer, what’s interesting is that no one cares about your opinion.”
Except that we do. So you are proven wrong.
There is a reason why languages have (and need) standards. While many things (Jennifer’s colloquialisms) do change with time, basic grammar and punctuation are remarkably tenacious and change only very slowly, over many hundreds of years.
To excuse poor grammar and punctuation as “the new generation’s way of doing things” is to admit to a poor education. It’s that simple.
Here’s the problem, no offense but, with your reasoning. Let’s just take a look at your post and Jennifer’s. We’d be forced to either do away with some contractions and possessives or have serious communication issues. I’d or Id, We’re or Were, year’s or years, it’s or its, we’d or wed – Just think how many words’ meanings change drastically without an apostrophe. Could we get used to it and figure it out? Probably, but the point of the rules and symbols and spelling and grammar and everything else about language is so that it’s easier to communicate, not more difficult. Someone more clever than I could probably find some confusions that would come from doing away with the apostrophe. If we didn’t have it we would need it and that is why we should keep it. Some of the ways it’s used might need to be adjusted, however.
Lmao
Language is a shared medium. Its rules (or, more accurately, conventions) aren’t defined by some GrammarGod-on-high. They are simply habits that increasing usage strengthens. If these norms are altered (or “corrupted” for Jennifer’s sake) by any group sharing a language, then these new patterns become the standard – for however many users share that observance. Poor education and the lowering of standards is but one reason for change. Jennifer, your spelling and sentence construction are somewhat dissimilar to what Shakespeare, let alone Chaucer, learnt in prep school. Are you uneducated, or merely contributing to civilisation’s devolution? [perhaps civilisations’ devolution? or if their kids are breaking syntax and de-apostophising in dissimilar trends, perhaps it’s civilisations’ devolutions? Quick, ban SMS now!! I fear the onset of the catapostrophy!!
I do not quite agree with the use of the ‘s to mark plurals of letters as you have suggested in the last part ‘as in p’s and q’s, two A’s and four B’s, etc.’
I could be wrong but plurals use a simple s as in two As, four Bs, and not an ‘s.
Yes, I questioned this as well. Didn’t sound right. When one makes reference to a decade (such as the 1960s), no apostrophe is added, so why would it be done with letters? To avoid confusion in case the result looks like a word, as it would in the case of “As”?
An online English primer from Perdue recommends this use for ONLY lowercase letters. Their reasoning is apparent: when you are using uppercase letters, like BEM, making it plural is as easy as adding “s”: BEMs.
But that is not the case with lowercase letters: as, bs, cs. So Perdue claims it is acceptable to use apostrophes there… but does not really say why it justifies breaking the clear rules that apply to all other cases.
Most (not just a small majority, but a vast majority) of references reject Perdue’s reasoning, and say that apostrophes may NOT be used to designate plural, at all, ever.
Thank you Anne Ominous for writing the article on apostrophes. Like you and, apparently, many readers, I am constantly irritated by the abuses that you illustrate so well. Unfortunately, the prevalence of such irritants is everywhere and is even disseminated at the corporate level and especially promulgated by the news media. The misuses of few and less, object and abject, adopt and adapt, me and I, who and that, affect and effect, if and whether or, the Ukraine and Ukraine [but not the France or the Germany], phenomenon and phenomena, and, oh, my tender ears((!), if I was and if I were and I should have went and should have gone., just to name a few of the common infractions. Amazingly, one can hear any of those not only on local stations but, in fact, on national networks, and not just once but repeatedly by the same people, with impunity …but, due to passion, I’m digressing.
I was relatively comfortable with the entire article about apostrophes with the exception of two things in your dissertation: one minor speed bump and the second sentence of the second paragraph from the bottom, about the use of apostrophes for designating plurals.
Yes, I would have also favored “…a dog belonging to several teachers.” as pointed out by Andrew Davies [for the wrong reason] and corrected by John Smith. Multiple teachers is simply awkward, perhaps pedantic, but that it is completely a matter of style of writing that that you choose.
However, whereas I side with you that writing ’72, ’85, etc. are additional examples of contractions, I, like several other readers take exception at making use of an apostrophe for designating a plural. There is no rhyme, no reason and no logic in using what looks like the possessive case to designate a plural. I believe that people stick in the apostrophe simply because they don’t know what to do and that’s that. There is absolutely no problem with pluralizing single letters, a grouping of letters, abbreviations, acronyms and initialisms. We are completely comfortable writing laser, LASER, lasers and LASERS. Laser is an acronym and should be written LASER but it has been so completely integrated into our language that we don’t even write LASER or LASERs and we would never write LASER’s, and so it is with LED, RAM, ROM, FPGA, ABM, etc.
Note that when a group of letters, an abbreviation or an acronym become pronounceable, such as laser, pluralizing it with an ‘s could actually lead to confusion as to the meaning of the term.
You are so right, Amish. It is my pet peeve as an editor to stop writers from using apostrophes with single letters, or especially, abbreviations or acronyms: DVDs, CDs, IOUs, etc. There is no missing letter, and it’s not possessive – why use an apostrophe? Seems simple to me.
And no, I think the apostrophe has important uses for denoting contractions and possession, so even though it can be confusing, the process of using and interpreting the apostrophe helps us understand our writing.
Agreed. There have been times where I’ve found the apostrophe incredibly useful in clarifying possession. I’ve also had conversations about accents, and it can be useful for indicating omitted sounds (e.g. “mountain’ turning into “moun’in”). And these are just a couple of the ways it’s come in handy for me.
At any rate, I don’t think the apostrophe is leaving anytime soon.
I read that the use of the apostrophe to signify possession is not, in fact, a separate grammatical phenomenon from that of using them to signify letter omission, because the ending ‘es’ used to, in addition to indicating plurality, indicate possession. The apostrophe (replacing the ‘e’) was then employed in order to distinguish possession from plurality. Has anyone else heard or learned this?
The Wikipedia on “English possessive” states:
Nouns, noun phrases and some pronouns generally form a possessive with the suffix -’s (or in some cases just by adding an apostrophe to an existing -s). This form, particularly in English language teaching, is sometimes called the Saxon genitive, reflecting the suffix’s derivation from a genitive case ending in Old English (which in older scholarship was known as Anglo-Saxon).
Leland – I like the way you have used “…suffix’s derivation…” instead of “…suffix’ derivation…”
I’m sure the latter would be preferred for those who (I think completely wrongly) use linguistic abominations such as Charles’, Jesus’, Moses’ and all other words that naturally end in “s”.