Apostrophes – The Bane of Our ExistenceWhen to use apostrophes and where to use them seem to be universal problems in the English language. I wonder if students are no longer taught the basics of apostrophes. There is actually a society in England which devotes itself entirely to finding and pointing out errors in the daily usage of apostrophes. The best example which they came up with was a sign for apples. The person who made the little sign KNEW that many words ending in “s” required an apostrophe and put one before the “s” in “delicious”, making the sign read “Deliciou’s Apples”. If you see a sign which says “Daves Sandwiches”, you know that Dave is advertising sandwiches, but are you also aware that there should be an apostrophe after “Dave” and before the “s”? The sign is advertising Sandwiches made by Dave, not sandwiches with Daves in them. For weeks on end, just off the QEW, a major highway west of Toronto, a huge sign advertised “Mechanic’s Wanted”. Every time I saw the sign, I muttered, “Mechanic’s what is wanted?” The apostrophe indicates that something of or belonging to the mechanic was wanted. In reality, of course, they wanted “mechanics”. Eventually someone must have told the owner of the sign of his error and he painted over the apostrophe, so there was a space before the “s”, but it was less wrong than before. What are Apostrophes used for?Apostrophes generally have two uses:1. To indicate possession – to show that something belongs to you or the subject you’re writing about. For example, if my dog has a bone, you could write it using an apostrophe as “my dog’s bone”. 2.To shorten a phrase or take the place of a word or part of a word – generally referred to in English as a “contraction". Examples are “aren’t”, which is a shortened form of “are not”, “you’re” instead of “you are”, etc. How To Use Apostrophes:Is the word you want to use indicating the plural of something? For example, if you wanted to write about your dinner last night, in which you and everyone else had a taco, you would write that you had “tacos” for dinner. You put an “s” after the word. It’s that simple.If you want to write about something related to your taco, you would write about the “taco’s” flavour, or crunchiness, or whatever. You put an apostrophe after the word and then add an “s”. “The taco’s crunchiness disturbed the fellow at the next table” means that the crunchiness OF the taco disturbed the neighbour. If you want to write about something related to all the tacos, then you use the plural - tacos – and add the apostrophe after the word. “The tacos’ meat was especially spicy” means that the meat OF the tacos was very spicy. You are required to give notice if you are quitting a job, so you must give 2 weeks’ notice, meaning a notice OF two weeks... There’s even a movie with the title “2 weeks notice”. It should be 2 weeks’ notice, though. If your destination is walking distance OF 10 minutes, minutes must have an apostrophe after it – “10 minutes’ walking distance”. If your subject is singular, add an apostrophe and then an “s”; if it is plural, the apostrophe comes after the already existing “s”. There are a few exceptions to this rule, but not many. I won’t go into the exceptions here so as to keep this article short, but may go into detail in the future. Remember to ask yourself if a word is missing in the sentence, as indicated by the apostrophe. If there is no word missing, chances are the word should be plural and not have an apostrophe. Common Mistakes With Apostrophes:It’s versus Its“It’s” is a shortened version of “it is”. It is a long time to wait for Christmas if you are a child. It’s a long time to wait for Christmas if you are a child. “Its” is possessive. Its colour is red. This actually means, “The colour of it is red.” When you are unsure of whether the word requires an apostrophe, say the phrase in another way: “It’s colour is red” OR “It is colour is red”. Read the word which is missing as indicated by the apostrophe. It will be obvious to you when it’s wrong and what is required. In the above example, of course, no apostrophe is required and the possessive “Its” should be used. Your versus You’re A very common error involving apostrophes is mistakenly substituting “your” for “you’re”: When talking about something relating to another person, you talk about “your” things, for example, “Your dinner,” or “Your shirt”, etc. When shortening the phrase “you are”, you would write “you’re”. To determine if you are using the correct version, ask yourself if you mean “you are”. Insert the word which would be missing if you used the apostrophe. A comment on Facebook recently asked people to tell the individual if “your going to such-and-such an event”. What was meant was, “Advise me if you are going to the event” so the spelling should have been “you’re”. Saying “your going”, as in “Your going to the event caused quite a stir” would be correct because it is possessive and relates to the word “going” and does not mean “you are”. Generally, though, in writing professional papers, do not use conjunctions. This is not the way you would speak, but sounds far more literate to the reader. Contact me if you have any questions or have ideas for other articles you'd like to see. Back to the Articles list page. |
