Apostrophes

– The apostrophe appears twice in the sentence below:

– My grandmother’s shotgun doesn’t work.

The two main uses of the apostrophe are:

– 1. To show omission of one or more letters in a contraction

– 2. To show ownership or possession

1. To show omission of one or more letters in a contraction

A contraction is formed when two words are combined to make one word:

– Have + not = Haven’t– Can + not = Can’t– I + will = I’ll– I + am = I’m– It + is = It’s

– Remember that the only unusual contraction is this one:

– Will + Not = Won’t

Generally, to maintain academic tone, you do not use contractions in an essay.

– Say “cannot” instead of “can’t”– Say “does not” instead of “doesn’t”

It just makes you sound smarter.

2. To show ownership or possession

– To show ownership or possession, we can say:

– the jacket that belongs to Tony OR Tony’s jacket

– the grades possessed by James OR James’s grades

– the gas station owned by our cousin OR our cousin’s gas station

– the footprints of the animal OR the animal’s footprints

Remember:

– 1. The ‘s goes with the possessor not the thing possessed:

My cat’s bed NOT my cat bed’s

– 2. A singular possessive word that ends in s still gets an ‘s:

James’s street

Dennis’s yard

3. You do not add apostrophes to possessive pronouns:

Here are the possessive pronouns:itstheirs hishers oursyoursmine

3. You do not add apostrophes to possessive pronouns:

her jacket NOT her’s jacket

his jacket NOT his’s jacket

4. Possessive plural words that end in “s” are special:

Show the possessive of a plural possessive simply by adding an apostrophe:

My parents’ car (both parents).

My parent’s car (one parent).

All my cousins’ cars (many cousins).

– Both of my parents went to the store separately in their respective cars, so both my parents’ cars were at the store.

– Both of my parents went to the store in one car.

Exception!

– it’s = it is

– example: It’s going to rain.

– its = possessive form of “it”

– example: The dog played with its ball.

– you’re = you are

– your =possessive form of “you”

Example: Smith family

– the family’s car

– the family members’ car

– the Smiths’ home

– the Smiths’ car