In the English language, the apostrophe (‘) is used for three things:
- Marking a word as possessive (Nancy’s cup)
- Marking missing letters in a contraction (is not – isn’t)
- And, rarely, marking the plural of something that is not a word (the 1950’s), though many (I am one) consider this incorrect or superfluous.
One point that often confuses people is the difference between it’s and its. In this case only, the one with the apostrophe is NOT possessive. It is the contraction for “it is.” The possessive for something belonging to “it” is “its” and has no apostrophe. Not sure why unless it is to keep it from causing confusion with the contraction. In the long run, however, it has caused a lot of confusion. The simple rule to remember is, if you can replace the word with “it is,” you use the apostrophe; otherwise, not. I learned this trick in elementary school and to this day I chant it to myself as I’m writing “its” to be sure I’m doing the correct one.
There is a growing trend to add apostrophe-s to the end of words to form them into a plural. This is not correct and is a constant aggravation to those of us who are literate. Always interesting to go into a grocery store and see “Grape’s – $1/pound,” especially since they had to hunt down an extra character to make the apostrophe.
An additional problem is trying to make a possessive of a plural and just putting the apostrophe in front of the existing “s.” It can change the meaning.
Example:
- dog’s – belonging to one dog
- dogs – several dogs
- dogs’ – belonging to more than one dog
This can get even more creative if the root word changes in the plural.
Example:
- lady’s – belonging to one lady
- ladies – more than one lady
- ladies’ – belonging to more than one lady
- ladie’s – incorrect, but has been seen; has no meaning
While typos creep in everywhere, take a minute to proofread before hitting “send.” It is always better for you to catch your mistakes that for others to point them out.
Addendum: My website software seems to have decided to use “smart” quotes. All the ones I entered were vertical, both for the apostrophe and for the quotations. When they printed on the page, they’re pointing in three different directions. Not my doing and I’m not sure how to fix it. Aargh!