The relative possessive pronoun whose is also frequently the victim of apostrophe abuse. Note that none of these forms uses an apostrophe. In fact, for some of these pronouns, adding an apostrophe forms a contraction instead of a possessive see the table above.
Using possessive personal pronouns in joint constructions often sounds awkward You have their and my gratitude. Usually, the best solution is to rephrase the sentence to avoid the joint construction You have our gratitude or You have their gratitude and mine. Using an unnecessary apostrophe to form the plural of a noun is a very common mistake.
With very few exceptions, apostrophes do not make nouns plural. An apostrophe is part of the word it belongs to, so it should not be separated from the word by periods, commas, question marks, or any other punctuation mark.
Apostrophes that fall at the very beginning of a contraction are often mistyped as left-hand single quotation marks. Word processors tend to do this by default. A good dictionary may also be able to offer you some guidance. However, note that contractions are usually not used in academic writing. Instead, write the full form. If the plural of the word is formed by adding an "s" for example, cats , place the apostrophe after the "s" see guideline 3 below.
If the plural of the word is formed without adding an "s" for example, children , add apostrophe "s" 's as you would to the singular form. The exception to the possessive rule is that pronouns show possession without the use of apostrophes e. Note: Some grammar textbooks recommend keeping the "s ' s" s apostrophe s or "ss ' s" s s apostrophe s ending for singular words or for names ending in "s" or an "s" sound because this spelling allows for easier pronunciation.
It is a common error for people to write "it ' s i t apostrophe s " for possessive when they should write "its. It looks like you're using Internet Explorer 11 or older. This website works best with modern browsers such as the latest versions of Chrome, Firefox, Safari, and Edge. If you continue with this browser, you may see unexpected results. Write Clearly: Punctuation. Using Colons Using Apostrophes What is an apostrophe? Use an apostrophe when two words are shortened into one 2.
But unless you're talking about a noun that belongs to another noun, there is no apostrophe in plural nouns. Remember, no possession, no apostrophe. If you'd prefer, you can add only an apostrophe to singular possessives that end in "s" already, such as "Carlos' dog" or "Socrates' lesson.
Do you use an apostrophe or not when writing "s" or should it be "'s"? Decades are nouns, and they follow the same rules as other nouns.
Rules for using apostrophes with decades are:. If you're talking about a span of time that covers a historical decade , don't use the apostrophe. But if something belongs to one year of that decade, or if you're abbreviating the decade, you do need to include an apostrophe. Have you ever written something like "ABCs" and wondered if it's wrong? It's not — but there are grammar rules that can confuse the matter.
The rules are:. Technically, you can leave the apostrophe out of single-letter initialisms if it doesn't confuse your meaning for example, "This sentence has too many I's" requires an apostrophe to keep "I's" from looking like "is".
Now that you know when not to use an apostrophe, this big grammar issue should seem as small as the tiny punctuation mark itself. If you remember to only use apostrophes when you're using contractions and noun possessions, you'll avoid many common grammar errors. Refresh your knowledge on using contractions correctly for more help on those shortened words and don't forget to post a comment or question about using apostrophes below.
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