Apostrophes. When do we need to use them?

[[-]Battery[+]]

I have always had the problem of where to fit an apostrophe. We do tonnes of worksheets and so on on them, but I never seem to get them. My classmates keep telling me they are in the wrong place, but then I get confused. So where do you use them? confused  

[snazy-a-tastic]

Quote:

The apostrophe has three uses:

1) to form possessives of nouns
2) to show the omission of letters
3) to indicate certain plurals of lowercase letters.

Apostrophes are NOT used for possessive pronouns or for noun plurals, including acronyms.

That's from this site.. There's more information there, as well.

1. Snazy's.
2. Goin' or They're.
3. a's instead of as.

(I don't know why it's putting "/" in "that's". I certainly haven't typed it there.)  

[dark_elf]

I wounder about words that end in s, like "For many Christmas' we...." how do they work with them?  

[Ame Yuki Kaze]

Apostrophes are used to denote possession (This is Suzy's doll) and contraction (Let's go to the store). When using a plural possessive, the apostrophe goes after the word (It's the five dogs' yard). If a person's name ends in an S, such as the name Hans, the apostrophe goes after it in a possessive. (This is Hans' chocolate).

Apostrophes aren't used for special pluralizations. Never should one put something like this (He had ten CD's). There's no need for the apostrophe in the word "CDs". It happened in the 1960's is also incorrect. Just put 1960s. I hope this helps.  

[The MoUsY spell-checker]

Yami no Hitokiri

Apostrophes aren't used for special pluralizations. Never should one put something like this (He had ten CD's). There's no need for the apostrophe in the word "CDs". It happened in the 1960's is also incorrect. Just put 1960s. I hope this helps.

On Tuesday, I caught my roll call teacher (not an English teacher, he's the head of maths department) writing "just year 12's today" on the board. I pointed it out (before the other students arrived), and he said "Kerry (that's my name), don't be so cruel!", and it was funny.

It was only last term when we had a long discussion about unnecessary apostrophes. gonk I've told him that there shouldn't be apostrophes in plurals! (Role reversal? xp That conversation started with the word "daylight savings" (should there be an S or not?) in the HSC timetable that we just received at the time, but it's a long story.)

I also found a notice (about the next mufti day) with "70's" on it. I should find a chance to cross out the apostrophe while no one is looking.  

[[-]Battery[+]]

dark_elf

I wounder about words that end in s, like "For many Christmas' we...." how do they work with them?

I know for sure that after an 's', you put the apostrophe after it.  

[[-]Battery[+]]

Oh, thank you very much! ^__^
So loads of people were wrong then, because they were all saying that you don't need an apostrophe in sentences used to denote possession  

[SofiaDragon]

chinasmiling

dark_elf

I wounder about words that end in s, like "For many Christmas' we...." how do they work with them?

I know for sure that after an 's', you put the apostrophe after it.

"For many Christmases we went to my grandmother’s house.”

Note that the house belongs to grandma so there is an apostrophy. There is only one of her, so it comes before the 's.'

"My family alternated holidays between my two grandmothers' homes."

This has two grandmas with two houses - but they still own the houses. The apostrophy is after the 's.'

Note that in both examples, Christmas and holiday are plural but not posessive - they don't own anything so there is no apostrophy.
Contractions:
"They are my friends."
"They're my friends."
"What is up?"
"What's up?"
If you can split it into two words it gets an apostrophy. [/rule of thumb]  

[anime_freak777]

Uses of apostrophes:

-when using contractions
example: don't,can't,won't,etc.

-when showing ownership
example: I went to Sally's house for dinner.

-When writing some plural nouns,paticularly numbers & letters
example:Lucky 7's, The Three R's,etc.  

[The MoUsY spell-checker]

Sorry to revive this old thread, but I have a question about apostrophes.

According to Eats, Shoots and Leaves, plurals of letters or words (as in do's and don't's) have apostrophes, but what about plurals of names?

For example, is it "I know two Dianas" or "I know two Diana's"?  

[The Man who was Thursday]

snazy-a-tastic

(I don't know why it's putting "/" in "that's". I certainly haven't typed it there.)

Just to clear up this issue, it's a problem with the escaping of certain characters.

In layman's terms, it's poor programming on the part of the Gaia staff.  

[Ame Yuki Kaze]

The MoUsY spell-checker

Sorry to revive this old thread, but I have a question about apostrophes.

According to Eats, Shoots and Leaves, plurals of letters or words (as in do's and don't's) have apostrophes, but what about plurals of names?

For example, is it "I know two Dianas" or "I know two Diana's"?

Hmmmm, I could maybe see it for "do's", but I don't think you can have two apostrophes in one word "don'ts". That's a real conundrum.

As for the second, I'd say "Dianas". The only time there should be an apostrophe is "That's Diana's ball".  

[The Man who was Thursday]

"Do's and Don't's" isn't even correct grammar anyways...

But I'd still say ditch the apostrophes.  

[Kaeldra18]

I would just like to point out (though there may be another thread for this) that possesive form of it does NOT have an apostrophe.

ex:

I like that dog because it's cute.

The dog is cute; furthermore, its toy is cute.

In the first sentence, "it's" is a contraction (it is cute). In the second sentence, "its" is possesive but does NOT have an apostrophe.

That is a pet peeve of mine, especially online.