Why is the humble apostrophe so regularly misused and why are hairdressers so often the culprits?
Ladie’s perm’s at half price
(As the Guardian readers’ editor points out, journalists who should know better also get it wrong.)
Apostrophes have two simple uses: contractions and possessives. Not plurals; the confusion always seems to centre around an ’s’.
The apostrophe is used to replace missing letters, e.g.
that is short enough — that’s short enoughit is a crew cut — it’s a crew cut
There are no exceptions.
The apostrophe works together with an ’s’ to indicate ownership, e.g.
the mirror’s reflectionwomen’s stylists
St. James’s Street
And for possessive plurals ending in ’s’, the additional ’s’ is not used, e.g.
ladies’ perms half pricebarbers’ wives
There is one exception: the possessive ‘it’ is not punctuated, e.g.
its floor is filthy
There is the odd esoteric exception to the exception: stuff belonging to Jesus is usually said to be Jesus’.
Typographers, in their quest to aid the reader, use the apostrophe in situations where strict grammar would say otherwise, e.g.
do’s and don’ts
As stated earlier apostrophes are not normally used to make plurals, but writing the plural of ‘do’ as ‘dos’ would only serve to confuse the pronunciation. Similarly apostrophes are often used to pluralize (is that a word?) acronyms, e.g.
secondhand CD’s and vinyl
Personally, I prefer ‘CDs’ but it depends on whether that is clear to the reader within the typesetting design.
Because ‘barber’s wives’ means something different to ‘barbers’ wives’ (the former implies that a single barber has many wives). Don’t leave it to your readers to work out what you meant; they’re busy enough as it is.
This is not an apostrophe: '. It is a check mark and is generally used as a shorthand unit of measure, meaning ‘feet’ or ‘minutes’.
This is
an apostrophe: ’. It is best created in HTML by using the hexadecimal entity ’. See A List Apart for more typographical correctness.
Juan Carlos wrote:
I’m having a difficult time to tell the difference between car door OR car’s door? – dog tail OR dog’s tail?
car paint OR car’s paint?
Juan Carlos wrote:
I’m having a difficult time to tell the difference between car door OR car’s door? – dog tail OR dog’s tail?
car paint OR car’s paint?
please if you know the difference let me know about it I really urge to know the answer or the rule i would really appreciate it if you write me to juancarlosvalverde2@yahoo.com
pk wrote:
Not a comment but a question.
The proper name of the company is Schwan’s. Where does the apostrophe go in the case of Schwan’s position or Schwan’s interest? Would it be Schwan’s’ position?
webuser wrote:
I’ve always wondered about the apostrophe stuff! It was quite interesting what you said about Jesus and the fact that it is written “s” apostrophe!
And also, I didn’t realise ‘ is not an apostrophe it is a post mark! Wow! Thanks for telling us mate (friend meaning.)
lucy wrote:
I do not think that there should be an apostrophe in construction and groundworks.
The person who designed my web site has put one in.Who is correct?
Thank you.
Lucy.