The apostrophe has two functions:
- To show that letters are missing. This is known as contraction.
- To indicate ownership. This is known as possession.
Contractions
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When letters are missing in a word, and the word becomes shorter, the apostrophe is used to show where the missing letters belonged.
For example:
- I am becomes I’m
- You will becomes you’ll
- They would becomes they’d
Contractions are used in informal writing. Essays and reports should not contain informal writing.
Possession
Apostrophes are also used to show that something belongs to something else.
For example:
- The girl’s hat – means that the hat is owned by the girl.
- The girl’s hats – means that the girl owns more than one hat.
- The girls’ hat – means that the girls all share ownership of one hat.
- The girls’ hats – means that the girls own several hats (or one each).
As you can see, the apostrophe usually comes before the ‘s’ if the subject is single (‘the girl’), and after the ‘s’ if it is plural (‘the girls’). However it may be different if the word for a single subject ends with ‘s’ like princess, Venus or Socrates. One useful way to deal with this is to see if the ‘s’ is pronounced.
For example:
- Venus’s arms or the princess’s coronet
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In both of these examples the ‘s’ is pronounced, so there is an additional ‘s’ with the apostrophe before.
- Socrates’ wife
In this example the ‘s’ is not pronounced, so there is no additional ‘s’ and the apostrophe goes after the final ‘s’ in Socrates.
Its/it’s
The cat licked its paws.
There is no need for an apostrophe, because ‘its’ is a pronoun in its own right which stands in for ‘the cat’s’ and indicates ownership.
It’s an amazing idea.
A missing letter has been replaced by the apostrophe, so it really means ‘it is’:
Whose/who’s
Whose shoes are they?
Here whose is a special kind of pronoun (like its) which indicates ownership already, so there is no apostrophe.
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Who’s coming to dinner?
A missing letter has been replaced by the apostrophe, so it really means, ‘who is’.
Dates
The 1960s were a period of radical changes in morality.
In the ’60s, public morality underwent radical changes.
1960s’ morality was quite different to that which had gone before.
– In the first sentence, ‘1960s’ is a plural referring to all the years between 1960 and 1969, so there is no apostrophe.
– In the second sentence there is a contraction with ’19’ missed off. The apostrophe replaces the missing numbers.
– In the third sentence, what is being referred to is the morality of the 1960s, so the apostrophe indicates possession.
It is worth remembering that words may end with ‘s’ because they are plurals, and not because they indicate ownership or contraction. Look at what the word is doing and apply an apostrophe only if appropriate.
Source: https://t-tees.com
Category: WHICH
