Our friend the apostrophe
Dear allegedly literate, graduate-school-attending bloggers,
There's this little mark that looks like an inverted comma. It floats above the line, like this ', and is usually found in between letters. It's called the apostrophe. Some of us paid attention in grade-school, when our teachers prepared carefully hand-lettered flip charts outlining its use, and later in high-school when we were tested on its use. Some of us think that maybe those long suffering grade-school teachers might have been hand lettering charts for a reason other than sniffing the fumes from the magic markers, and the high-school teachers might have prepared tests for a reason beyond their own sadistic pleasure. Maybe they wanted us to learn a basic linguistic marker of the English language.
In Standard English the apostrophe has a small number of accepted uses:
Contractions
Our friend the apostrophe is used to denote that letters are missing from a contraction. Hence we see it in "can't," "won't," and "doesn't." In each of these contractions, the apostrophe replaces the letter "o."
Possession
This cute little mark does double duty. Not only does it replace missing letters (mostly vowels), but it can also be combined with the letter "s" to denote that cornerstone of capitalist society, possession.
This is Zingerella's blog. Those are Martin's shoes.
We know that someone called Zingerella has possession of this blog, and someone named Martin owns those shoes, because the writer (that'd be me) has affixed an "s" to the end of the nouns, by means of an apostrophe. If the writer (me again) had not used the apostrophe (Zingerellas blog. Martins shoes) we'd be confused. Do more than one Zingerella maintain blogs? And how many Martins are there, and what do they do with shoes? The simple addition of an apostrophe makes our meaning clear.*
If we spoke Latin, we'd call this the genitive. If we were a totally non-propertarian society, we might not have it at all, and instead we'd have a grammatical construction denoting that Zingerella maintains the blog, and Martin wears the shoes.
Please note that without the apostrophe, we create plural nouns:
There are doughnuts in the foyer. This sentence tells us that several fried pastries may be found in the entryway.
There are doughnut's holes in the foyer. This sentence tells us that a fried pastry has left several holes in the entryway.
There are doughnut's in the foyer. This sentence tells us that the writer abuses apostrophes and forces them to behave as plural markers. If we are feeling uncharitable, we may also conclude from this sentence that the writer should have paid more attention in elementary or high school, or that they should perhaps attend a remedial English class.
Let me elaborate on that last one a little more clearly:
The apostrophe is never used to denote a plural. Ever.
Got that?
If there's a bunch of things, and they don't possess anything, then they don't take an apostrophe.
This is important.
Apostrophes don't show "many."
Ahem.
Do I sound like Lynne Truss yet?
Apostrophes are used in contractions and possessives (and in a few other weird instances, such as to denote tongue clicks, and in random names in fantasy novels. But neither of those usages is at issue here.)
Problematic Possessives
Admittedly, the possessive use of the apostrophe is not as straightforward as its use in contractions. Sometimes words that possess things already end in the letter "s." Sometimes they're even plural. But do not fret. Don't worry. English grammarians have considered this one, and have established conventions!
For a plural possessor, you may put the apostrophe after the final "s":
The teachers' guides.
The apostrophe after the final "s" tells us there are many teachers and they severally have guides.
The workers' rights
Again, here we can surmise that a group of workers all have rights.
For a possessor who may be singular, but whose noun ends in "s," you may do one of the following. If you are a copy editor, you should do it consistently. If you are anyone else, you should simply do one or the other and I don't care if you alternate:
Put the apostrophe after the final "s," as you would with a plural possessor.
Jesus' teachings. There might be several Jesuses, all of whom teach things. Or there might be one, who has some teachings. We can hope that context will tell us whether we have one or several Jesuses.
The octopus' tentacles Again could be one octopus, eight tentacles, or we could be dealing with someone who doesn't use Latin plurals, and would say "eight octopus," rather than "eight octopi." So this could refer to the sixteen tentacles of two octopi, or the 64 tentacles of eight octopusses.
Despite the ambiguity inherent in this placement of the apostrophe, the placement is correct by conventional standards. If you eschew ambiguity, you may follow the alternative practice:
Add an "s" after the apostrophe after the possessor's final "s."
Jesus's teachings. Here we know that it's one guy named Jesus, who has a bunch of teachings.
The octopus's tentacles. We know we're dealing with one, tentacled marine beastie (eight tentacles, probably).
When we want to discuss the Jones family's sandwiches, we run into more problems of sibilance: Do we write the Jones' sandwiches or The Jones's sandwiches?
Either. It's fine. Whatever. Both are correct. Try not to do both at the same time: The Jones's's sandwiches just looks wrong. Even people who flunked English will probably look with some suspicion on the appearance of more than one possessive apostrophe at a time.
It's never easy knowing its exceptions
Even mavins of English and those of us who grooved on the flip charts rather that the fumes sometimes find our carefully constructed frameworks for apostrophe usage challenged when we deal with the its/it's question. I mean one's a contraction, and the other's a possessive, so both should have an apostrophe, but only one does. So somehow, sometime, a rule got broken.
Yep. A broken rule is enshrined in English usage.
So here it is: C comes before P, so the contraction trumps the possessive and wins the apostrophe.
It's is the contracted form of "it is." Its is the possessive form of "it." If my silly little rationale doesn't work for you (and it's an invented rationale, not a historical or logical one), then you may simply have to memorise this fact of Standard English usage.
It's annoying that the apostrophe can't be consistent in its application in this instance.
So, my darling graduate students, academics, and would be educators of the elite, please take pity on a long suffering baccalaureate grammarian please, and befriend the apostrophe. Embrace the genetive. Create possessives with panache and aplomb.
And don't create your plurals like a friggin' illiterate.
Yours in humble service to grammar and clarity,
Zingerella
*Clarity is a noble goal for any writer, even one engaged in graduate studies.
There's this little mark that looks like an inverted comma. It floats above the line, like this ', and is usually found in between letters. It's called the apostrophe. Some of us paid attention in grade-school, when our teachers prepared carefully hand-lettered flip charts outlining its use, and later in high-school when we were tested on its use. Some of us think that maybe those long suffering grade-school teachers might have been hand lettering charts for a reason other than sniffing the fumes from the magic markers, and the high-school teachers might have prepared tests for a reason beyond their own sadistic pleasure. Maybe they wanted us to learn a basic linguistic marker of the English language.
In Standard English the apostrophe has a small number of accepted uses:
Contractions
Our friend the apostrophe is used to denote that letters are missing from a contraction. Hence we see it in "can't," "won't," and "doesn't." In each of these contractions, the apostrophe replaces the letter "o."
Possession
This cute little mark does double duty. Not only does it replace missing letters (mostly vowels), but it can also be combined with the letter "s" to denote that cornerstone of capitalist society, possession.
This is Zingerella's blog. Those are Martin's shoes.
We know that someone called Zingerella has possession of this blog, and someone named Martin owns those shoes, because the writer (that'd be me) has affixed an "s" to the end of the nouns, by means of an apostrophe. If the writer (me again) had not used the apostrophe (Zingerellas blog. Martins shoes) we'd be confused. Do more than one Zingerella maintain blogs? And how many Martins are there, and what do they do with shoes? The simple addition of an apostrophe makes our meaning clear.*
If we spoke Latin, we'd call this the genitive. If we were a totally non-propertarian society, we might not have it at all, and instead we'd have a grammatical construction denoting that Zingerella maintains the blog, and Martin wears the shoes.
Please note that without the apostrophe, we create plural nouns:
There are doughnuts in the foyer. This sentence tells us that several fried pastries may be found in the entryway.
There are doughnut's holes in the foyer. This sentence tells us that a fried pastry has left several holes in the entryway.
There are doughnut's in the foyer. This sentence tells us that the writer abuses apostrophes and forces them to behave as plural markers. If we are feeling uncharitable, we may also conclude from this sentence that the writer should have paid more attention in elementary or high school, or that they should perhaps attend a remedial English class.
Let me elaborate on that last one a little more clearly:
The apostrophe is never used to denote a plural. Ever.
Got that?
If there's a bunch of things, and they don't possess anything, then they don't take an apostrophe.
This is important.
Apostrophes don't show "many."
Ahem.
Do I sound like Lynne Truss yet?
Apostrophes are used in contractions and possessives (and in a few other weird instances, such as to denote tongue clicks, and in random names in fantasy novels. But neither of those usages is at issue here.)
Problematic Possessives
Admittedly, the possessive use of the apostrophe is not as straightforward as its use in contractions. Sometimes words that possess things already end in the letter "s." Sometimes they're even plural. But do not fret. Don't worry. English grammarians have considered this one, and have established conventions!
For a plural possessor, you may put the apostrophe after the final "s":
The teachers' guides.
The apostrophe after the final "s" tells us there are many teachers and they severally have guides.
The workers' rights
Again, here we can surmise that a group of workers all have rights.
For a possessor who may be singular, but whose noun ends in "s," you may do one of the following. If you are a copy editor, you should do it consistently. If you are anyone else, you should simply do one or the other and I don't care if you alternate:
Put the apostrophe after the final "s," as you would with a plural possessor.
Jesus' teachings. There might be several Jesuses, all of whom teach things. Or there might be one, who has some teachings. We can hope that context will tell us whether we have one or several Jesuses.
The octopus' tentacles Again could be one octopus, eight tentacles, or we could be dealing with someone who doesn't use Latin plurals, and would say "eight octopus," rather than "eight octopi." So this could refer to the sixteen tentacles of two octopi, or the 64 tentacles of eight octopusses.
Despite the ambiguity inherent in this placement of the apostrophe, the placement is correct by conventional standards. If you eschew ambiguity, you may follow the alternative practice:
Add an "s" after the apostrophe after the possessor's final "s."
Jesus's teachings. Here we know that it's one guy named Jesus, who has a bunch of teachings.
The octopus's tentacles. We know we're dealing with one, tentacled marine beastie (eight tentacles, probably).
When we want to discuss the Jones family's sandwiches, we run into more problems of sibilance: Do we write the Jones' sandwiches or The Jones's sandwiches?
Either. It's fine. Whatever. Both are correct. Try not to do both at the same time: The Jones's's sandwiches just looks wrong. Even people who flunked English will probably look with some suspicion on the appearance of more than one possessive apostrophe at a time.
It's never easy knowing its exceptions
Even mavins of English and those of us who grooved on the flip charts rather that the fumes sometimes find our carefully constructed frameworks for apostrophe usage challenged when we deal with the its/it's question. I mean one's a contraction, and the other's a possessive, so both should have an apostrophe, but only one does. So somehow, sometime, a rule got broken.
Yep. A broken rule is enshrined in English usage.
So here it is: C comes before P, so the contraction trumps the possessive and wins the apostrophe.
It's is the contracted form of "it is." Its is the possessive form of "it." If my silly little rationale doesn't work for you (and it's an invented rationale, not a historical or logical one), then you may simply have to memorise this fact of Standard English usage.
It's annoying that the apostrophe can't be consistent in its application in this instance.
So, my darling graduate students, academics, and would be educators of the elite, please take pity on a long suffering baccalaureate grammarian please, and befriend the apostrophe. Embrace the genetive. Create possessives with panache and aplomb.
And don't create your plurals like a friggin' illiterate.
Yours in humble service to grammar and clarity,
Zingerella
*Clarity is a noble goal for any writer, even one engaged in graduate studies.