What does an apostrophe after a person's name mean?
Some name have apostrophes because they mean from a certain area or family. My name, O'Neill, is from the Irish. O means of. Other than that reason, no apostrophes should be used unless it represents possession.
Apostrophes are used to form the possessive form of a singular noun or a plural noun not ending in s by adding ' and an s at the end. If a plural noun ends in s, only ' should be added. university's women's students' Correct: High school students' scores have been gradually improving over the last several years.
What is an Apostrophe? An apostrophe is a punctuation mark (') that appears as part of a word to show possession, to make a plural number or to indicate the omission of one or more letters. Three Uses of Apostrophes: In most cases an apostrophe is used to show possession.
The apostrophe has three uses: 1) to form possessive nouns; 2) to show the omission of letters; and 3) to indicate plurals of letters, numbers, and symbols. Do not use apostrophes to form possessive pronouns (i.e. his/her computer) or noun plurals that are not possessives.
Use the apostrophe + s after the second name if two people possess the same item. Otherwise, use an apostrophe after each name. Never use an apostrophe with possessive pronouns: his, hers, its, theirs, ours, yours, whose. They already show possession.
The possessive 's always comes after a noun. When something belongs to more than one person and we give a list of names, we put 's on the last name. With regular plural nouns we use ' not 's. They're my parents' friends.They're my parent's friends.
Answer and Explanation: The two types of apostrophes are apostrophes of possession and contraction. Possessive apostrophes indicate ownership of something, like in the following sentence: "Amelie's house is at the end of the lane." Contraction apostrophes are used to shorten words.
- Mistake #1: Using apostrophes to make a word plural.
- Mistake #2: Confusing it's and its.
- Mistake #3: Confusing their, there, and they're.
- Mistake #4: Confusing your and you're.
Do not use an apostrophe in the possessive pronouns whose, ours, yours, his, hers, its, or theirs. Do not use an apostrophe in nouns that are plural but not possessive, such as CDs, 1000s, or 1960s. Do not use an apostrophe in verbs.
One reason is to highlight the importance of the idea or object. It also adds drama, evoking emotions from jubilation to sorrow. Reference.com brings out this point: “The effect of an apostrophe in poetry is to personify or bring to life something not living, so the poet is able to address it directly.
What are the two most common uses of apostrophes?
To show the omission of one or more letters in a contraction. To show ownership or possession.
- It's a nice day outside. ( contraction)
- The cat is dirty. Its fur is matted. ( possession)
- You're not supposed to be here. ( contraction)
- This is your book. ( possession)
- Who's at the door? ( contraction)
- Whose shoes are these? ( possession)
- They're not here yet. ( contraction)
- Their car is red. ( possession)
An apostrophe is a punctuation mark that is mainly used to show possession or ownership of something or someone. It can also be used to form contractions and to indicate missing letters and numbers.
Unless you want to make your last name possessive, there aren't any circ*mstances where you would need to add an apostrophe. The rule goes like this: If your name ends in s, x, z, ch, or sh, add -es to the end. Walsh becomes Walshes, and Malkovich becomes Malkoviches.
So our advice is that if you pronounce the possessive form of “Jesus” as JEE-zus, add the apostrophe alone; but if you pronounce it as JEE-zus-uz, then add 's. This advice agrees with the recommendations of The Chicago Manual of Style (17th ed.), the guide widely used by both commercial and academic publishers.
When making your last name plural, you don't need to add an apostrophe! The apostrophe makes the name possessive. The last letter of your last name will determine if you add an “-s” or an “-es”. If your last name ends in -s, -z, -ch, -sh, or -x, you add -es to your last name to make it plural.
- Five Steps in Using the Apostrophe Correctly.
- Look for possessive construction. Usually two nouns appear together. The first.
- Reverse the nouns using a prepositional phrase. Examine the ownership word.
- It the ownership word does NOT end in an "s" sound, add an apostrophe and.
Possessive Pronouns Replace the Owner and the Object: mine, yours, his, hers, ours, theirs (Ex: The pen is my pen. The pen is mine.) Possessive Adjectives Replace only the Owner and Must Connect to a Noun: my, your, his, her, its, our, their (Ex: That's Lisa's That's her pen.)
Apostrophes look like single quotation marks, but they're used alone rather than in pairs. Apostrophes mainly indicate that letters have been omitted, or they show a noun's possession. Occasionally, they can show that a single letter or number is plural.
The basic rule is quite simple: use the apostrophe to indicate possession, not a plural. The exceptions to the rule may seem confusing: hers has no apostrophe, and it's is not possessive.
What are the 4 rules of apostrophes?
- Use an apostrophe when two words are shortened into one.
- Use an apostrophe when showing possession.
- Do not create a double or triple “s” when adding an apostrophe.
- Do not use an apostrophe with pronouns to show possession.
- Don't use an apostrophe for plural nouns.
Why can't most people use an apostrophe correctly? The English language is tricky. Its (sorry, it's) so easy to confuse “it's”, where the apostrophe indicates theres (sorry, there's) a letter missing, with it's (sorry, its) possessive. We expect a possessive to have an apostrophe s.
But the biggest problem with the apostrophe, he says, is that in its possessive usage, it makes a singular noun sound "exactly the same as the plural – and because there's no difference when you speak it, you have to have the understanding of its purpose in order to get it right when you write it."
That's what makes apostrophes so confusing to many people: They're so versatile that it's hard to gauge when it's not right to use them.
Use only the apostrophe for proper nouns ending with s (Tess, Jesus, Texas) and regular plural nouns (cars, protestors). At its simplest, the apostrophe + s shows possession when added to singular nouns or indefinite pronouns (anyone, someone, somebody, etc.).
