I know many people will hate me for this and say "fuck y0 I dont care bout this bullshit" but all these posts containing misplaced apostrophes made me having to create this topic.
The apostrophe is a ’ as you might know, not a ´, not a ` and also not a '. Enlarge your font size by holding CTRL and scrolling with the mouse wheel to see the difference clearly. But most people don't have this sign on their keyboard so a ' is also regarded as a correctly entered apostrophe. The apostrophe is a punctuation and looks like this:
Okay so far? I'll tell you how to use it:
An apostrophe is needed if you want to show a possession. This means if you want to show that somebody owns something.
Example:
Mike bought a chainsaw because he was happy. This is Mike's chainsaw.
This rule is also valid for non-name words:
This is my computer's graphics card.
If this word does already end in an S, you don't need to add a second one:
James stole Mike's chainsaw because he chose to kill people. Now it is James' chainsaw.
My brothers bought bought ONE SINGLE bigger chainsaw. This SINGLE BIGGER CHAINSAW is my brothers' chainsaw. They want to kill Mike and James. OMG wtf is wrong with that?
Each of my sisters bought a chainsaw, too. These are my sisters' chainsaws.
A word like Max does not end in an s, but there is no Max's, use Max' instead because if you pronounce it, then it will sound like Macs, and now it's ending in an S.
Words like his, its or yours don't have an apostrophe.
Apostrophes are needed to indicate omitted letters. Thus you need to add an apostrophe into words like "don't" or "it's" [notice the difference between its and it's [it is]]
You may replace the 19 in 1970s with an apostrophe and you get '70s. Writing '70's or 1970's is slightly incorrect.
And now, the most common mistake: The plural-apostrophe. Usually there is none. No Avocado's, no Apple's, no car's, no CD's, no APC's, no pro's, no con's, no a's, no b's and also no c's. It's recommended to capitalize letters in this case: As, Bs, Cs instead of as/a's, bs/b's, cs/c's.
Of course there are exceptions like the Italian surname D'Angelo that has an apostrophe in it.
This is not everything about the apostrophe but the most important parts.
If you want to learn more about this wonderful punctuation, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/apostrophe. That's where the image is from.
The apostrophe is a ’ as you might know, not a ´, not a ` and also not a '. Enlarge your font size by holding CTRL and scrolling with the mouse wheel to see the difference clearly. But most people don't have this sign on their keyboard so a ' is also regarded as a correctly entered apostrophe. The apostrophe is a punctuation and looks like this:
Okay so far? I'll tell you how to use it:
An apostrophe is needed if you want to show a possession. This means if you want to show that somebody owns something.
Example:
Mike bought a chainsaw because he was happy. This is Mike's chainsaw.
This rule is also valid for non-name words:
This is my computer's graphics card.
If this word does already end in an S, you don't need to add a second one:
James stole Mike's chainsaw because he chose to kill people. Now it is James' chainsaw.
My brothers bought bought ONE SINGLE bigger chainsaw. This SINGLE BIGGER CHAINSAW is my brothers' chainsaw. They want to kill Mike and James. OMG wtf is wrong with that?
Each of my sisters bought a chainsaw, too. These are my sisters' chainsaws.
A word like Max does not end in an s, but there is no Max's, use Max' instead because if you pronounce it, then it will sound like Macs, and now it's ending in an S.
Words like his, its or yours don't have an apostrophe.
Apostrophes are needed to indicate omitted letters. Thus you need to add an apostrophe into words like "don't" or "it's" [notice the difference between its and it's [it is]]
You may replace the 19 in 1970s with an apostrophe and you get '70s. Writing '70's or 1970's is slightly incorrect.
And now, the most common mistake: The plural-apostrophe. Usually there is none. No Avocado's, no Apple's, no car's, no CD's, no APC's, no pro's, no con's, no a's, no b's and also no c's. It's recommended to capitalize letters in this case: As, Bs, Cs instead of as/a's, bs/b's, cs/c's.
Of course there are exceptions like the Italian surname D'Angelo that has an apostrophe in it.
This is not everything about the apostrophe but the most important parts.
If you want to learn more about this wonderful punctuation, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/apostrophe. That's where the image is from.
Last edited by lord_tyler_486 (2006-05-25 01:00:11)