Apostrophe (possession)

The use of the punctuation mark the apostrophe (') to show possession is quite easy – if you know the rule. Unfortunately, too many writers have not learnt the rule. Many students are intimidated by what seems complicated - but can be mastered by most intelligent adults within minutes. It may take concentration. (The apostrophe can also show that you have left a letter out of a word, which can cause confusion.)

When we write about someone (the possessor) possessing (or owning) something, then this is shown by an apostrophe. The rule is:

PUT THE APOSTROPHE AFTER THE POSSESSOR

(AND ADD AN ‘S’ IF THE SOUND REQUIRES IT).

So:

• One boy's books = the book of one boy.
• Two boys' books = the books of more than one boy.
• A woman’s rights is the rights of an individual woman; Women’s rights is the rights of (all) women.
• Dogs’ behaviour is how dogs (in general) behave; A dog’s behaviour is how one (particular) dog behaves
• The USA’s voting record is the history of how the USA voted, that is "The States’s record" OR "the States’ record": it depends on how you pronounce it.
• Similarly, "James’s bike" is correct fot those who pronounce 'James' with two syllables when he owns something ('jamez-iz'); and "James’ bike" is correct for those who pronounce it with one syllable: 'jamez'.

One exception to this rule is when the possessive is formed with the pronoun "it". To distinguish from the contaction of "it is", the possessive is "its", without an apostrophe: its = of it .

So:

• Leave the dog to chew its bone.
• It's chewing a bone.

WARNING: plural nouns which are not possessors never need apostrophes – even if they are abbreviations, like "GPs", or dates, like the "1960s". (Fowler (1996) advises an exception to this exception in the case where the sense would be unclear: "There are three e's in 'excellent'". The intention of using punctuation to increase clarity seems to be exactly what punctuation is for. AWE takes it a step further: it prefers individual letters to be shown enclosed in a pair of inverted commas: "There are three 'e's in 'excellent'". This seems more logical, and fulfils the same purpose. When we take an individual letter from a word for comment, we sometimes additionally place it between two hyphens, within the inverted commas: '-e-'.)

You may need to see apostrophe (omission) to explain another problem with apostrophes. There is an illustration of the misuse of the apostrophe to mark possession at Refuse.