Apostrophe Bloomers

One of the uses of apostrophe is to show ownership. For example, Uma's pen would indicate a pen that belongs to Uma.

The confusion in using apostrophe arises because it is also used for denoting missing letters.

I can't instead of I cannot (to indicate missing letters)
The company's logo (to indicate possession)
the dogs' shelter (in the case of plural nouns ending in s, use apostrophe after the s to indicate possession.)

But words like his, hers, its and theirs are possessive pronouns. They have possession built into them already, so they do not need apostrophes.

The house over there is theirs, not yours.(no apostrophe in theirs or yours)

It's common to find many people making wrong usage of it's and its.

The dog is playing with it's toy ball (use its instead)

It's, with the apostrophe, is a contraction. It means "it is," and the apostrophe stands for the missing "i".

However, with people, we add an apostrophe followed by s for possession. For example, Lata's mother, Amitabh's wife.

Similar to it's/its is the pair of words who's and whose.

Another use of apostrophe is to form plurals of lettres, digits or phrases, as for example:

Don't forget to cross your t's
The chief guest spoke well, but filled his speech with you-know's

Technorati Tags: English Grammar

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