'Apostrophes'
There are four types of apostrophes in English grammar:
- POSSESSIVE APOSTROPHES: These are used to show noun possession (That is Mark's bag). For nouns that do not end in the letter s, an apostrophe with an s is added at the end of a noun to make it possessive (e.g., Mike's, brother's, war's). If the noun ends in the letter s, just the apostrophe is added (e.g., Chris', mistress', chaos').
- SYNCOPATED APOSTROPHES: Apostrophes are also used in syncope, a type of solecism where words are shorten by leaving letters out, and the apostrophe goes where the missing letters are (e.g., leavin', 'em). Sometimes, syncopated words are combined into a contraction, but the apostrophe still takes the place of missing letters, as in don't or shouldn't (not that if words are mashed together with changed letters, like gonna or wanna, this is a portmanteau and thus needs no apostrophe). This also applies for numbers: instead of the 1920s, one uses an apostrophe for just the '20s.
- INTERNAL QUOTE APOSTROPHES: If quoting a quote, apostrophes are used for the inner quote (Lisa smiled and said, "In the words of Winston Churchill, 'If you're going through hell, keep going.'")
- SINGLE CHARACTER PLURAL APOSTROPHES: Occasionally, you might need to pluralize single characters--for this pluralization, you use an apostrophe between the character and the s (I got all A's and B's this semester!). The reason for this is the letter S itself, as it's clearer to show s's as a plural than ss (There are four s's in Mississippi.)
WHERE APOSTROPHES DON'T GO
After commas, apostrophes are the most frequently misused punctuation mark. Not only do writers miss placing apostrophes correctly in the four cases above, but they typically add plural misapostrophes, personal pronoun misapostrophes, and chronal misapostrophes.
- PLURAL MISAPOSTROPHES: Except for single character words, all regular nouns are pluralized with an s and made possessive with an 's. For example, Mike's indicates that something belongs to Mike, while Mikes indicates there are multiple men named Mike milling about.
- PERSONAL PRONOUN MISAPOSTROPHES: There is a reason that pronouns are not a subset of nouns: while they can also show case, possession, and number, each has its own specific word and thus does use and inflections to pluralize or show possession: this is why I, my, we, and our are not just different but share no common letter. Yet a common error in writing is to find apostrophes in the possessive words that do end in s like hers, ours, and yours. Nowhere is the more common than with its, as the word is commonly mistaken with the contraction it's, which correctly uses a syncopatic apostrophe.
- CHRONAL MISAPOSTROPHES: Even more common that its-it's mistakes are mistakes in chronal apostrophes, where one adds an apostrophe to a year. Apostrophes are added to the start of a year that is missing some digits ('23, '79, '94): this makes sense, as removing digits from a number is like removing letters from a word and falls under syncope. Apostrophes should not be added, however, to the end of decades (1920s, 1680s, 2010s). This also makes logical sense: when I add the s to the year, I'm in fact making it a plural of all the years that use the digits before the zero (i.e., the 1920s are 1920, 1921, 1922, 1923, 1924, 1925, 1926, 1927, 1928, and 1929). Since apostrophes are not used for pluralizing, there should be no apostrophe between the date and the s. Chronal misapostrophes often appear when a writer uses a syncopated decade and puts the apostrophe in the wrong spot (20's instead of '20s).