captainsubtle

Recently I'm finding more infuriatingly terrible grammar everywhere and it bothers me. It really bothers me although I don't really know why. I don't believe it's particularly taxing nor time consuming to apply a modicum of effort and get it right, especially if you're producing public facing documents for your employer; your hard won research looks shoddy and unprofessional if your use of English is reminiscent of YouTube comments.

Rant over, time to learn how to use an apostrophe and there are not actually many use cases to remember. Of course, English is delightfully irregular and there are exceptions to the rules but following these will result in a good 70-80% reduction in my rage induced tea making.

0. Plurals

Stop, cease, desist, abstain and discontinue the generally uncertain and carless use of apostrophes for indicating plurals including - and this is important - acronyms, abbreviations and numbers.

This is rule zero: remember it; love it; cherish its simplicity. By way of example:

1. Greengrocers do not sell vegetable's but vegetables
2. Do not write CD's nor DVD's nor CSV's which are respectively CDs, DVDs and CSVs.
3. Avoid scribing 1980's as the correct form is 1980s

There are, of course, exceptions for unusual plurals such as individual letters and predominantly singular words, such as conjunctions, but as a rule of thumb -s or -es is a plural, -'s is a possessive.

1. Contractions

This is where you remove letters from (potentially multiple) words and replace the missing letters with an apostrophe. Here are some examples:

1. you are becomes you're
2. I will becomes I'll
3. of the clock becomes O'clock
4. it is becomes it's

This isn't difficult so far, right?

2. Possessives - singular

Possessives, as the name suggests, incur a sense of belonging with a -'s suffix. More often than not using an apostrophe here is shortening a sentence and flipping the order: Mark's house was originally the house of Mark. For singular nouns that already end in -s it's exactly the same, for example:

1. Jonathan stole Timmy's hotdogs
2. Thomas's goat does not enjoy being milked
3. Yesterday's news was depressing but this coffee's flavour is outstanding

3. Possessives - plural

This often leads to confusion but in reality it's pretty easy. There are two cases: the plural noun does not end with -s and, unsurprisingly, where it does. For plurals with no -s: add -'s. For plurals already ending in -s: add an apostrophe on its own. Example time:

1. Oliver was expelled after being caught in the girls' changing room again
2. I was shocked to discover that the students' "protest" didn't start until 11am
3. The children's sandpit was infested with scorpions

Notable exceptions for possessives are for possessive pronouns, such as its, theirs, his, hers and so on, which do not take apostrophes as they're already possessive!

See, it's easy!

Now get back to work or whatever it is you do.