Has a student ever written to you to tell you that they scored A on the exams? I did, and one of them had an A grade in English!
The apostrophe seems to be the most misunderstood punctuation mark in the English language and yet its use is actually very simple.
There is really only one rule: an apostrophe is used to replace one or more missing letters.
Nothing more and nothing less.
Contractions
A contraction is a word that is a shortened form of one or more words by removing one or more letters.
The following are examples of commonly used contractions.
No -> No
Didn’t -> Didn’t
I can’t -> I can’t
It wasn’t -> it wasn’t
We have -> We have
They are -> they are
It -> it
Has -> Is
The following are examples of contractions used within a sentence:
The child is walking the dog -> The child is walking the dog
I didn’t steal the buns -> I didn’t steal the buns
They did not walk into the city -> They did not walk into the city
There are times when we need to write how we would speak. This is especially true when writing dialogues in fiction.
The title of this article “That cute apostrophe of Li’l Ol ‘” is an example. Here I have used apostrophes to show the contractions that are made in colloquial speech, as in the case of
Small -> Li’l
Old -> Ol ‘
You may well believe that the first example is wrong; that there should be an additional apostrophe to denote the missing ‘e’ at the end of ‘little’. That would be wrong.
We never use more than one apostrophe per word.
While the general rule of thumb is to use the apostrophe instead of the last missing letter, as in “must not -> must not”, if we have to choose between the missing letters that we would normally pronounce and the ones that are silent, use the apostrophe to denote missing sounds.
The use of apostrophes in contractions should be easy to remember. Just think about what the word you are using really represents. If it’s two words that have come together to form one, there should be an apostrophe somewhere. Similarly, if it is a truncated word.
Possessive
First of all, a possessive is a word that possesses the word that follows it. Confused? Let me teach you.
My daughter’s toys
The toys belong to my daughter, therefore daughter is the possessive word.
The store manager
While the store is not owned by the manager, without the store there would be no manager, so the store becomes possessive. Nevertheless,
The manager’s shop
It would also be correct since the manager runs the store.
Possessives are always nouns.
But wait … where are the missing letters?
Good question. To understand the answer, let’s quickly go back in time.
English is a Germanic language and originally written English shared possessive forms with German. If we go back to the 14th century, when Chaucer wrote the “Canterbury Tales”, we find that the possessives did not include apostrophes, but had an additional “e”.
For instance:
My daughters ‘toys / The managers’ store
Although that seems very clumsy to us, that was the accepted way of writing possessives in Chaucer’s day. As the language has evolved, we simply remove the extra ‘e’ and replace it with an apostrophe. The same applies when a person’s name is possessive:
Lisaes toys / Jameses store
becomes
Lisa’s Toys / James’s Store
Although in the case of words or names that end with an ‘s’, it is also acceptable to write
James Store
As you can see, even when using possessives, the apostrophe replaces a missing letter.
The exception to the rule
The possessive form of “that” should never include an apostrophe. “It’s” is a contraction of “It is”, while “its” is the possessive form of “it”, which is a pronoun and belongs to other pronouns such as “his”, “hers”, “our”, “yours “and” yours “, neither of which have apostrophes.
Possessive plural
The same rule as above applies, but the apostrophe moves.
My sisters’ clothes / Dog bones
In these cases, the clothes belong to more than one sister and the bones belong to several dogs.
Chaucer would have written:
My sisters’ clothes / Dog bones
The last two letters have been removed and replaced by an apostrophe.
However, if the possessive is a word that already donates the plural form of another word, as in the case of ‘child / children’, writing “children’s shoes” would be incorrect. We already know from the word itself that it means more than one child, so “Children’s shoes” is the correct way to write it.
Regular plurals
Apostrophes are used ONLY in contractions and possessives.
Carrot for sale – Many ducks in a pond – I bought two CDs – I
washed his socks
All of the above are examples of an apostrophe used to show that a word is plural. DO NOT DO IT!
It is wrong.
Some otherwise excellent writers stumble at this point and by using an apostrophe where it is not necessary, the meaning of a sentence can change dramatically.
“Watch out: the truck turns!”
What does this mean? Does the turn belong to the truck? If so, why are we being warned? Not that I have ever met a truck that has a twist, so I can only assume that the apostrophe has been used incorrectly.
“Watch out: Trucks turning!”
That is better. Now we are being warned that trucks are likely to turn.
conclusion
The correct use of apostrophes should not be difficult to understand. It really is a case of “no letter missing, no apostrophe needed.” If you remember that possessives are also missing letters and that ‘its’ is an exception, you will never have to make an apostrophe error again.