The apostrophe. I’ve seen this simple punctuation mark misused in newspapers, magazines, and in material sent home by teachers. The UK’s Sunday Telegraph article about teachers’ grasp of grammar was headlined by apostrophe abuse. Apostrophe use can be arcane. But for most of our needs, it’s easy!
- Apostrophes are used to denote missing letters in a contraction.
- Apostrophes are used to denote possession. However, they are not used for possessive pronouns!
- Apostrophes are not used for plurals.
For instance can’t for cannot, isn’t for is not, it’s for it is.
The teacher’s book. (A book that belongs to a teacher.)
The teachers’ book. (A book that belongs to more than one teacher.)
The teachers’ books. (More than one book belonging to more than one teacher.)
The book is yours. Its cover is blue. His is new. Hers is new too.
I have hundreds of CDs from the 90s.
For a great review, check out Lynch’s Guide to Grammar on the apostrophe and it’s versus its.
