That Cute Li'l Ol' Apostrophe

Have you ever had a student write to tell youquickly zip back in time.
they've achieved Grade A's at exams? I have, andEnglish is a Germanic language and written English
one of them was a grade A in English!originally shared possessive forms with German. If we
The apostrophe seems to be the mostgo back to the 14th century, when Chaucer wrote
misunderstood punctuation mark in the English"Canterbury Tales", we find that possessives didn't
language, and yet its use is really very simple.include apostrophes, but had an extra "e" added.
There's really only one rule: an apostrophe is used toFor example:
replace one or more missing letters.My daughteres toys / The manageres shop
Nothing more - nothing less.Although that looks very clumsy to us, that was the
Contractionsaccepted form of writing possessives in Chaucer's
A contraction is a word that is a shortened form ofday. As the language has evolved, we've simply
one or several words through the removal of one orremoved the extra 'e' and replaced it with an
more letters.apostrophe. The same applies where a person's name
The following are examples of commonly usedis the possessive:
contractions.Lisaes toys / Jameses shopbecomes
Do not -> Don'tLisa's toys / James's shop
Did not -> Didn'tAlthough in the case of words or names that end
Can not -> Can'twith an 's', it's also acceptable to write
Was not -> Wasn'tJames' shop
We have -> We'veSo you see, even when using possessives, the
They are -> They'reapostrophe is replacing a missing letter.
It is -> It'sThe Exception To The Rule
It has -> It'sThe possessive form of 'it' should never include an
The following are examples of contractions usedapostrophe. "It's" is a contraction of "It is" while "its"
within a sentence:is the possessive form of "it" which is a pronoun and
The boy is walking the dog -> The boy's walkingbelong alongside other pronouns such as "his", "hers",
the dog"ours", "yours" and "theirs", none of which have
I did not steal the buns -> I didn't steal the bunsapostrophes.
They were not walking to town -> They weren'tPlural Possessives
walking to townThe same rule as above applies but the apostrophe
There are times when we need to write as weis moved.
would speak. This is especially so when writingMy sisters' clothes / The dogs' bones
dialogue in fiction.In these instances, the clothes belong to more than
The title of this article "That Cute Li'l Ol' Apostrophe"one sister and the bones belong to several dogs.
is an example. Here I've used apostrophes to showChaucer would have written:
the contractions that are made in colloquial speech,My sisterses clothes / The dogses bones
as in the case ofThe last two letters have been removed and
Little -> Li'lreplaced by an apostrophe.
Old -> Ol'If, however, the possessive is a word that already
You may well believe that the first example is wrong;donates the plural form of another word, as in the
that there should be an extra apostrophe to denotecase of 'child/children', writing "the childrens' shoes"
the missing 'e' at the end of 'little'. That would bewould be wrong. We already know from the word
wrong.itself that it means more than one child, making "The
We never use more than one apostrophe to a word.children's shoes" the correct way of writing it.
While the general rule is to use the apostrophe inRegular Plurals
place of the last missing letter, such as in "shall notApostrophes are used ONLY in contractions and
-> shan't", if we need to choose between missingpossessives.
letters that we'd normally pronounce and those thatCarrot's for sale - Many duck's on a pond - I bought
are silent, use the apostrophe to denote the missingtwo CD's - Iwashed his sock's
sounds.The above are all examples of an apostrophe being
The use of apostrophes in contractions should beused to show that a word is plural. DON'T DO IT!
easy to remember. Just think of what the wordIt's wrong.
you're using really represents. If it's two words thatSome otherwise excellent writers trip up on this point
have been joined to make one, an apostrophe shouldand by using an apostrophe where it isn't called for,
be in there somewhere. Likewise if it's a truncatedthe meaning of a sentence can change dramatically.
word."Beware: Truck's turning!"
PossessivesWhat does this mean? Does the turning belong to
First of all, a possessive is a word that owns thethe truck? If so, why are we being warned of it?
word that follows it. Confused? Let me show you.Not that I've ever known a truck to own a turning
My daughter's toysso I can only assume that the apostrophe has been
The toys belong to my daughter, therefore daughtermisused.
is the possessive word."Beware: Trucks turning!"
The shop's managerThat's better. Now we're being warned that trucks
While the shop doesn't actually own the manager,are likely to turn.
without the shop there would be no manager soConclusion
shop becomes the possessive. However,The correct use of apostrophes shouldn't be difficult
The manager's shopwould also be correct as theto understand. It really is a case of "no missing letter
manager runs the shop.- no apostrophe needed". If you remember that
Possessives are always nouns.possessives also have missing letters and that 'its' is
But hold on.... where are the missing letters?an exception, you'll never need make an apostrophe
Good question. To understand the answer, let'sblunder again.