Prompt Proofing Blog Post: Revisiting the Dreaded Apostrophe

    VANCOUVER, BC, October 21, 2011 /24-7PressRelease/ -- We will revisit certain topics we have already blogged about as time goes on because there are many spelling and grammar issues that crop up time and time again and need addressing further. They can't be fixed with just one blog post! Last week, we blogged about homophones, which we had covered before. This week, we're looking at the apostrophe in more depth (we previously touched on issues with the apostrophe here and here).

I once had a colleague - an excellent teacher and a lovely person - who stated quite happily that she "didn't understand apostrophes at all!" I suspect, by virtue of the amount of errors I see almost everywhere, that she is far from alone in this!

First rule of thumb: An apostrophe has one of two purposes: it stands in place of missing letters (e.g. wouldn't, isn't, etc.) or it shows possession (e.g. This is Paul's book.) If there are no missing letters and there is no possession issue then you do not need an apostrophe.

Contrary to popular opinion, acronyms (and decades) do not require apostrophes when they are made plural. This is a common mistake seen with acronyms such as FAQs (often seen as FAQ's). Some American guidelines have started to accept the use of the apostrophe when pluralizing decades (1970's), but by most experts' standards this usage is still considered incorrect.

To return to my FAQs example, FAQs stands for Frequently Asked Questions - this is a simple plural; nothing belongs to the questions, and there are no missing letters. Simple plurals do not require an apostrophe.

Similarly, returning to the 1970s example, this will not need an apostrophe (unless we are suggesting that something belongs to the 1970s, e.g. ...1970s' fashions - in which case the apostrophe would follow the 's' since the fashions belong to the decade and not just to 1970). However, if we abbreviate the decade then we do use an apostrophe, but this is used to indicate omission rather than possession, and therefore goes in place of the missing numbers - i.e. the '70s (because we really mean 1970s but we have omitted 19).

The two other main areas of confusion seem to be:

- with possession when the noun is plural
- with possessive pronouns

Plural Nouns

Below are some examples of plural nouns used (correctly) with apostrophes showing possession:

Girls' night out, two weeks' notice, children's playground, women's rights

In each case the apostrophe comes after the plural form of the word. A girl's night out would not be much fun, since only one girl would be going!

Irregular plurals such as children, women, etc. follow the same rule; there just isn't an 's' involved so it is actually simpler.

Possessive pronouns

The possessive pronoun which seems to cause the greatest confusion is its. I suspect this is because we see it's so often. If we look back to the other reason for apostrophe usage - omitted letters - we can see that it's is used because a letter is omitted - it's stands in place of it is or it has (e.g. It's been nice knowing you or it's a beautiful day today.)

Its on the other hand, is a possessive pronoun and possessive pronouns do not need apostrophes. (Think of mine, yours, ours, theirs, etc.) I totally understand why people get confused with this one - having just learned that apostrophes are used to show possession - but the point of possessive pronouns is that they do the job for you, eliminating the need for an apostrophe.

In each of the examples below, the second sentence uses a possessive pronoun (no apostrophe):

That book is Paul's. / That book is his.

The donkey's back was aching. / The donkey was tired, its back was aching.

Those are the girls' coats. / The coats are theirs.

Check back next week as we continue to revisit some common grammar mistakes.

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