Apostrophes are scattered like snowflakes across the landscape of today’s writing. People who are not quite sure how to use this little punctuation mark simply drop it in at random intervals. Possessives, plurals, contractions… some get apostrophes and some do not. Within the same document, some words have proper apostrophes and others do not.
What is going on? Has everyone forgotten fourth grade? Or is it part of the breakdown of the moral fiber of our society, this abuse of a simple punctuation mark? Whatever the reason, this Writamin reminds readers about appropriate apostrophes.
Here is the first thing you need to know about the apostrophe: It does not mark plurals.
- One dog, two dogs.
- Mr. and Mrs. Brown, the Browns.
- One CD, two CDs.
- One mango, two mangoes.
- 1990s (covering the period from 1990 to 1999)
No apostrophe. Ever. - dog’s bowl
- Mr. Brown’s home
- CD’s surface
- mango’s peel
- 1990’s political results
- All the dogs’ leashes (multiple dogs)
- Browns’ home (the whole Brown family)
- All the CDs’ surfaces were scratched. (multiple CDs)
- Mangoes’ peels (multiple mangoes)
- The 1990s’ reliance on innovation (the reliance lasted multiple years)
- The men’s glee club gave a concert.
- The women’s hats were beautiful.
- The children’s room was messy.