That cute Li’l Ol’ apostrophe

Has a student ever written to tell you that he or she got an A on a test? I do, and one of them was 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.

Not -> Not

Didn’t -> Didn’t

I can’t -> I can’t

was not -> was not

We have -> We have

They are -> They are

is -> is

has -> is

The following are examples of contractions used within a sentence:

The boy walks the dog -> The boy walks the dog

I didn’t steal the buns -> I didn’t steal the buns

They were not walking towards the city -> They were not walking towards the city

There are times when we need to write as we would speak. This is especially true when writing dialogue in fiction.

The title of this article “That Cute Li’l Ol’ Apostrophe” is an example. Here I have used apostrophes to show the contractions that are made in colloquial speech, as in the case of

small -> small

Old -> Old

You may well believe that the first example is wrong; that there should be an extra apostrophe to indicate the missing ‘e’ at the end of ‘little’. That would be wrong.

We never use more than one apostrophe in a word.

While the general rule is to use the apostrophe in place of the last missing letter, as in “must not -> not”, if we have to choose between missing letters that we would normally pronounce and those that are silent, use the apostrophe to indicate the missing sounds.

The use of apostrophes in contractions should be easy to remember. Just think about what the word you’re using actually represents. If it’s two words that have been joined together to form one, there must 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, so daughter is the possessive word.

the store manager

While the store does not actually own the manager, without the store there would be no manager, so the store becomes possessive. Nevertheless,

manager’s shop

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 fourteenth century, when Chaucer wrote “Canterbury Tales”, we find that possessives did not include apostrophes, but had an additional “e”.

For example:

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 drop 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 in ‘s’, it is also acceptable to write

james shop

As you can see, even when possessives are used, the apostrophe replaces a missing letter.

The exception to the rule

The possessive form of ‘it’ must 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 together with other pronouns such as “his”, “hers”, “ours”, ” yours” and “theirs”, neither of which have apostrophes.

Plural Possessives

The same rule as above applies, but the apostrophe is moved.

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 gives the plural form of another word, as in the case of ‘child/children’, writing “the 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.

Carrots for sale – Many ducks in a pond – I bought two CDs – I
washed his socks

The above are all examples of the use of an apostrophe to show that a word is plural. DO NOT DO IT!

It’s wrong.

Some otherwise excellent writers stumble over this point, and by using an apostrophe where it isn’t required, the meaning of a sentence can change dramatically.

“Watch out: the truck is turning!”

What does this mean? Does the turn belong to the truck? If so, why are we warned about it? Not that I’ve ever met a truck that has a twist, so I can only assume that the apostrophe has been used incorrectly.

“Watch Out: Turning Trucks!”

That is better. We are now 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 need to make an apostrophe mistake again.

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