Apostrophes: How Do I Use Them Again?

Now a little background information as to why I chose to call punctuation a choir: I sing soprano in two different community choirs, and we are preparing for three performances over the next few weeks. A couple of the songs we are singing have some very high notes, at least for amateurs like us. When we hit them, boy do we sound good, but when we don't, ouch!

Practicing singing got me to thinking about apostrophes. I've just published a wizzle about how to use commas. Apostrophes look identical to commas except for where they are placed. As so many people feel mystified as to their proper use, it occurred to me that they were my next logical choice as a writing topic.

In some ways, apostrophe use is simpler to explain than comma use, as apostrophes don't come up nearly as often as commas do. Yet many people get confused as to where apostrophes should be used and why they are used, so here goes my explanation.

There are two main uses for the apostrophe: to show where a letter is missing and to show that something belongs to something or someone, otherwise known as possession.

The first use -- to show that a letter or letters are missing -- occurs in contractions. Remember contractions? That's when two words are squished together to make one, dislodging a letter or letters in the process.

The last sentence has an example of a contraction -- "that's." The two words that have been squished together are "that" and "is." When you make a contraction of those two words, you drop the "i" and put an apostrophe in its place to show that a letter is missing.

Other examples of contractions are "it's," which means "it is"; "they're," which means "they are"; "you're," which means "you are"; and "who's," which means "who is." I've used these examples in particular because they are ones that are often misused. The reason is they resemble and sound identical to other words, that is, "its," "their," "your," and "whose."

These words I just mentioned are possessive pronouns, which is the confusing part because in general, the other use for apostrophes is when you are using possessive nouns, such as, Jimmy's donut or Audrey's purse. The thing is, when you use a possessive pronoun, rather than a possessive noun, you don't use an apostrophe. Possessive pronouns include his, her, their, your, and its. Confusing, huh?

The thing to remember is that when you use a possessive pronoun, you don't need the apostrophe. You wouldn't say hi's when you mean his, would you? Then you shouldn't use "it's" when you mean "its" either.

An even easier way to remember which word is right is to read your sentence over, adding the letters that have been left out. So when you read "it's" in your writing, think in your head "it is." If it makes sense, you've used the right form. If it doesn't make sense, then maybe you mean "belonging to it," and you should leave the apostrophe out.

Contractions are used in more casual, chatty speech. Formal writing usually uses the more formal forms with no contractions. If you want to be one hundred percent sure of yourself, you can avoid contractions altogether if they are giving you trouble.

However, most online readers appreciate the friendlier feel of contraction use. It makes them feel they are talking to a real person, as most of us use contractions automatically when we speak. The simple practice is to read over what you've written, adding the extra letters in your head and checking for meaning.

Lynne Truss includes a funny but enlightening section in her book on the history of the use of apostrophes in the English language. They were originally used to indicate omitted letters but later came into use as a way to indicate possession. The printing industry was instrumental in establishing norms that we take for granted today. It seems people have been waffling over apostrophes for a long time!

Eats, Shoots & Leaves Illustrated Edition 

Plurals don't require apostrophes. They are neither possessive nor contractions. No missing letters have been left out. But sometimes people use an apostrophe when they are showing more than one of something. Why?

I think this confusion comes because people mix up the apostrophe "s" that is needed for possession and then just use it for all uses of the letter "s" at the end of a word. There is also the fact that people often get mixed up when making a possessive when a word ends in "s," and then they generalize the apostrophe for all words with an "s" at the end.

For example, if I want to talk about the new bicycle that Beth Jones got for her birthday I might say "Beth Jones' bicycle." Or I could equally correctly say, "Beth Jones's bicycle." I remember feeling anxious about this rule when I was a kid. I wanted one of the two to be correct. I can remember that after this grammar lesson, some of my classmates who had never before had problems with plurals suddenly started adding apostrophes to their plurals. I'm not sure why, but maybe they generalized the either/or apostrophe rule to be legitimate for all uses of "s" at the end of a word.

Of course, sometimes you may want to use a plural word in the possessive form, and then you would use an apostrophe. For example, if three brothers were playing baseball, and some other kids walking by joined them, you could say they were all playing with the brothers' bat. You use an apostrophe after the "s" because the bat belongs to all three brothers. But if each brother had his own bat, you would say there were three bats, not three bat's. They were all playing with the brothers' bats.

Be kind to people who make this mistake, but for goodness sake, don't make it yourself! Grammar mistakes make your writing look careless, despite the fact you put so much care into the ideas you are trying to express. Of course, it's the ideas that matter the most, but using good grammar will make people sit up and listen. After all, it makes it sound as if you really know what you're talking about.

(Oops! I ended with a preposition! Grammar no-no!)