Some business names may inadvertently spell a different name if the name with an ⟨s⟩ at the end is also a name, such as Parson. Modern usage has been influenced by considerations of technological convenience including the economy of typewriter ribbons and films, and similar computer character “disallowance” which tend to ignore past standards. Authorities are now unanimous that it’s can be only a contraction of it is or it has.note 6 Despite this, using it’s as a possessive pronoun is a common grammatical error in present times. The issue of the use of the apostrophe arises when the coordinate construction includes a noun (phrase) and a pronoun. The apostrophe is used in English to indicate what is, for historical reasons, misleadingly called the possessive case in the English language.
Common Apostrophes Mistakes
Sometimes, adding just s rather than ‘s may leave meaning ambiguous or presentation inelegant. For abbreviations, including acronyms, the use of s without an apostrophe is now more common than its use with an apostrophe. A small activist group called the Apostrophe Protection Society has campaigned for large retailers such as Harrods, Currys, and Selfridges to reinstate their missing punctuation. Names based on a first name are more likely to take an apostrophe, but this is not always the case. In recent times there has been an increasing tendency to drop the apostrophe.
It can be very easy to misuse apostrophes in your writing so follow these rules in order to conquer those common mistakes. Put an apostrophe, or ‘s, at the end of the word instead. Not every problem with apostrophes will result in a communication disaster, but remember that some readers have a zero-tolerance approach to their misuse.
- The vast majority of English references published from the late 20th century onwards disparage the use of apostrophes in family-name plurals, for example identifying Joneses as correct and Jones’s as incorrect.
- This is known as a contraction and the apostrophe in this case shows where the letters ha have been removed.
- Use apostrophes to form the plural of lowercase letters, abbreviations with periods, and some uppercase letters.
- For singular forms, the modern possessive or genitive inflection is a survival from certain genitive inflections in Old English, for which the apostrophe originally marked the loss of the old ⟨e⟩ (for example, lambes became lamb’s).
- Many guides recommend apostrophes whether the single letters are lowercase (as in “minding your p’s and q’s”) or uppercase (as in “A’s and S’s”).
No other punctuation mark causes so muchbewilderment, or is so often misused. Use apostrophes for contraction or possession in each sentence. Complete this activity to show off your understanding of apostrophes for possession. chicken road game Complete this activity to show your understanding of apostrophes for contraction.
Letters of the alphabet, and small words
Watch this video to revise apostrophes for contraction. You can just add an apostrophe to show the feet belong to the brothers. This is called a possessive apostrophe.
Smart quotes
This shows that Mittens thinks the magpie belongs to her.Plural nouns work in a similar way. Usually if the noun already ends in s, then the apostrophe just brings itself. If that noun doesn’t end in s, the apostrophe brings one with it.This shows the crown belongs to the magpie. If an item belongs to something, the apostrophe shows us who, by sitting at the end of the noun. First, remind yourself how apostrophes are used for contraction by watching this video. In the Lisp family of programming languages, an apostrophe is shorthand for the quote operator.
Forming plurals of lowercase letters
- Similarly, apostrophes are not needed in abbreviations like DVDs or HGVs.
- The apostrophe represents sounds resembling the glottal stop in the Turkic languages and in some romanizations of Semitic languages, including Arabic and Hebrew.
- No other punctuation mark causes so muchbewilderment, or is so often misused.
- Modern usage has been influenced by considerations of technological convenience including the economy of typewriter ribbons and films, and similar computer character “disallowance” which tend to ignore past standards.
- Cat is a singular noun so you need to add an apostrophe and ‘s’ to show that the tail belongs to the cat.
Contractions are generally considered to be informal. New items will be added, and current items may change. Contractions are common in speaking and in informal writing. Maintained by the Department of Informatics, University of Sussex The word ‘its’ or ‘it’s’ can be very tricky.
In modern computing practice, Unicode is the standard and default method for character encoding. Because of the very close similarity of the typewriter apostrophe and typewriter double quote to prime and double prime, substitution in informal contexts is ubiquitous but they are deprecated in contexts where proper typography is important. The apostrophe represents sounds resembling the glottal stop in the Turkic languages and in some romanizations of Semitic languages, including Arabic and Hebrew. In many languages, especially European languages, the apostrophe is used to indicate the elision of one or more sounds, as in English.
The author and language commentator Anu Garg has called for the abolition of the apostrophe, stating “Some day this world would be free of metastatic cancers, narcissistic con men, and the apostrophe”. George Bernard Shaw called them “uncouth bacilli”, referring to the apostrophe-like shape of many bacteria. Truss comments that “the naming of Hear’Say in 2001 was … a significant milestone on the road to punctuation anarchy”.
Other Uses of Apostrophes
This is known as a contraction and the apostrophe in this case shows where the letters ha have been removed. Omission means leaving something out, and we often do this with letters or groups of letters in words. Do not put an apostrophe in word ending in s, such as a plural. The same applies to yours, theirs and ours because these are also possessive adjectives of personal pronouns. The apostrophe (Ↄ, ↄ, ’), also known as the apostrophus, is a punctuation mark used in writing. For acronyms, numbers, decades, and words used as words, you can add or omit the apostrophe (just be consistent).
Many guides recommend apostrophes whether the single letters are lowercase (as in “minding your p’s and q’s”) or uppercase (as in “A’s and S’s”). Similar examples of notable names ending in an ⟨s⟩ that are often given a possessive apostrophe with no additional ⟨s⟩ include Dickens and Williams. Its use for indicating plural “possessive” forms was not standard before the middle of the 19th century.citation needed For example, the word “glass’s” is the singular possessive form of the noun “glass”. English spelling retained many inflections that were not pronounced as syllables, notably verb endings (“-est”, “-eth”, “-es”, “-ed”) and the noun ending “-es”, which marked either plurals or possessives, also known as genitives (see Possessive apostrophe, below).
But its (without an apostrophe) means ‘belonging to it’, the bird spread its wings. These two words cause confusion because they break the rules! Sometimes we join two words together, like would’ve for would have. The apostrophe shows where this has happened.
It is also substituted informally for other marks – for example instead of the prime symbol to indicate the units of foot or minutes of arc. It is also used in a few exceptional cases for the marking of plurals, e.g., “p’s and q’s” or Oakland A’s. For other languages and symbol sets (especially in mathematics and science), see below. For a far more comprehensive list of symbols and signs, see List of Unicode characters. Therefore, the correct version is we are open Mondays to Fridays.
For more details on practice with geographic names, see the relevant section below. However, debate has been going on regarding the punctuation of St James’ Park (Newcastle) for some time, unlike St James’s Park (London) which is the less contentious version. The possessive of it was originally it’s, in contrast to the modern its.
A contraction is a word where a letter or two have been left out, largely due to ease of pronunciation. A simple way to remember this rule is the fact that you do not use an apostrophe for the possessive his or hers, so do not do it with its! To use an apostrophe to create a contraction, place an apostrophe where the omitted letter(s) would go. If the noun after “of” is a building, an object, or a piece of furniture, then no apostrophe is needed! I’m afraid, therefore, that, if you find apostrophes difficult, you willjust have to grit your teeth and get down to work.
The British founder of the Apostrophe Protection Society earned a 2001 Ig Nobel prize for “efforts to protect, promote and defend the differences between plural and possessive”. If you have a name that ends in “s,” or if you will observe home-made signs selling tomatoes or chili-and-beans, you will quickly note what can be done with a possessive apostrophe in reckless hands. Rather than ʿ (modifier letter left half ring), the apostrophe is sometimes used to indicate a voiced pharyngeal fricative as it sounds and looks like the glottal stop to most English speakers. The addition of an s without an apostrophe may make the text difficult to read. Some style guides state that the apostrophe is unnecessary since there is no ambiguity but that some editors and teachers prefer this usage. The apostrophe is very often used in plurals of symbols, for example “that page has too many &’s and #’s on it”.
Putting the apostrophe at the end means that we know there are multiple students or many dancers being referred to. It’s a handy tool because instead of saying the bedroom of Luca, the apostrophe and the s make it Luca’s bedroom. Apostrophes may be small but they play a vital role in clarifying information within a sentence. Comes in plurals which don’t (do not) need it. The most common grammatical mistake in written English is to put it’s where its is correct. Even when apostrophe errors do not cause confusion, their presence demonstrates a lack of attention to proofreading, which detracts from the professionalism of your writing.
The solution was to use an apostrophe after the plural ⟨s⟩ (as in “girls’ dresses”). This was regarded as representing not the elision of the ⟨e⟩ in the “-e” or “-es” ending of the word being pluralized, but the elision of the ⟨e⟩ from the Old English genitive singular inflection “-es”. Similarly, apostrophes are not needed in abbreviations like DVDs or HGVs.
Using apostrophes
Punctuation marks generally break words; modifier letters generally are considered part of a word. Later sans-serif typefaces had stylised apostrophes with a more geometric or simplified form, but usually retaining the same directional bias as a closing quotation mark. In a Chronicle of Higher Education blog, Geoffrey Pullum proposed that the apostrophe be considered the 27th letter of the alphabet, arguing that it is not a form of punctuation.
