I taught English for thirty years. Once upon a
time, we would teach grammar and punctuation. Not too many kids “got it,” but
at least it was taught. The last few years, before I retired, the only teaching
of punctuation was random and coincidental. It wasn’t in the curriculum. In
some ways, I didn’t miss teaching it. How many times did I hear kids refer to
apostrophes as “flying commas”? How often did I teach apostrophes, focusing on
the very few rules, and then kids began inserting flying commas everywhere they
saw an s? Well, that happened every year.
Now I read internet blogs, articles, and comments and wonder if anyone knows the rules for apostrophes. In
this blog post, I’m going to go over the few apostrophe rules, emphasizing the
pet peeves I have. Uh, yeah, I have a lot of them.
Rule #1. Apostrophes are used to tell the reader
that letters are missing. Usually this is done in contractions. Do not becomes don’t and the apostrophe tells us the o in not is missing. I
have an irritated side comment here (I think this goes as pet peeves one
through four). This rule about
contractions? It applies for it’s, you’re, they’re, and who’s. It’s =
it is; you’re = you are; they’re = they are; who’s = who is. How is that hard
to comprehend…and therefore spell correctly? Those words are contractions. (I’m doing my best to not
use all caps and loads of exclamation marks). For the love of grammar and
spelling, why do I have to read misspellings of those words every day?
Moving
on…You might also use an apostrophe with ’cause (it’s not cuz) or ’til (which
is pet peeve number five and stands for the word until—till is a money
drawer or a way to work up the ground for planting—and is a misspelling of ’til)
or go get ’em (for them) or top o’ the mornin’. The use of the apostrophe in
the previous several examples tells the reader that letters are missing.
Rule #2. Do not use an apostrophe to make a plural
of a noun (two bird’s is incorrect) or before the final s in a verb (bird chirp’s is incorrect). The only time an
apostrophe is used in any kind of plural is in the following three instances:
1) Use the apostrophe to form the plural of an abbreviation that combines upper
and lowercase letters or has interior periods: The science department gave ten
M.A.’s and four Ph.D.’s at graduation. 2) Use the apostrophe to form the plural
of lowercase letters: The word has multiple i’s and u’s. 3) Use the apostrophe
to form the plural of words that aren’t nouns but are used as nouns: There are
too many and’s in that sentence.
Besides these three unusual circumstances, one only needs to use an apostrophe
in contractions and to form possessives.
Sidenote. Possessive pronouns never have
apostrophes. My, mine, its, his, her, hers,
our, ours, their, theirs, your, and
yours are examples of possessive pronouns. Pronouns are used in place of
nouns, and there are special pronouns that show ownership. They do not have
apostrophes. What am I on, pet peeves number six and seven? They’re means “they are.” Their is a possessive pronoun which means
“belongs to them.” All other times you use the homophone in writing, use there. It’s not so hard to understand,
but I admit, it is slightly harder to
understand than to understand why people write are instead of our. Have
you placed are order yet? Give me a break. Those words don’t even sound alike.
The above image makes me laugh. Moving on, there are exactly three rules for forming
possessives of nouns.
Rule #3. To form the possessive (shows ownership)
of a singular noun (singular means there is only one person, place, thing, or idea showing ownership), add an
apostrophe and an s at the end of the
word. Let me insert this crazy additional word to the rule—always. Yeah, I don’t care what the construction sounds like.
There’s a rule for this. For singular words, add an apostrophe and an s to show ownership—always.
It’s time to interrupt to explain where I’m headed
here. There are three simple rules for forming possession in English grammar.
What I’m saying is Mr. (or Mrs.) I-Made-Up-Grammar-For-The-English-Language did
something right for once when inventing apostrophe rules. He (or she) took the
idea that punctuation is meant to help the reader understand what he or she is
reading and devised three simple rules that do that job perfectly. But then Mr.
(or Mrs.) I-Live-In-A-Different-Century-And-I-Think-I’ll-Evolve-The-Language-For-No-Particularly-Good-Reason-Except-To-Throw-In-An-Exception-To-A-Rule-That-Is-Perfectly-Easy-To-Understand-And-Apply
came along and has tried to throw a wrench into something that didn’t need
wrenching. To paraphrase his (or her) exception, I think this would describe it
well: “If the singular word ends with s and
forming the singular possessive inconveniences your pronunciation skills, you
can decide—or not—to use an apostrophe to form the possessive without adding an
s. But there’s not going to be a set
description of when you’ll do this. Just do it randomly and ignore what the
other two possessive rules mean because it’ll be convenient for your eyes and
ears, I guess, sort of.” I think that’s the new rule—which isn’t a rule at all.
So instead of following the rule for singular possessives consistently, the new
age grammar tweekers suggest we can write Jesus’ disciples and Moses’ staff and
diabetes’ victims and Brussels’ capital building. Oh, but go ahead and write
bus’s lights and glass’s liquid and Mr. Jones’s confusion and Chris’s lack of
assurance of whether he (or she) is doing the right thing. Or don’t. It’s kind
of up to you based on how it sounds and looks and makes you feel. Yeah, this is
pet peeve whatever number I’m on, but it’s time to go back to the rules.
Rule #4. To form the possessive of a plural noun
that ends with s (as most plural
nouns do), simply put an apostrophe after the s. This will do two things. It’ll tell the reader that the word is
showing ownership and it’ll tell the
reader that the word is plural. So while a reader knows that dog’s paws is
talking about only one dog, the reader also knows that dogs’ paws is talking
about more than one dog’s paws. It’s the beauty of the rule. Glass’s liquid is
one glass while glasses’ liquid is more than one glass. Let me move on to rule
#5 before I focus back on my interruption from above.
Rule #5. To form the possessive of a plural noun
that does not end with s, add an apostrophe and s
to show possession. So if women have shoes, you would write women’s shoes.
It’s children’s imaginations and teeth’s cavities.
So I stated three rules for possessives. Easy
rules. Applicable rules. Functional rules. And they’re consistent, which in
English is kind of an odd thing. So let’s go back to rule #3 and my
interruption and talk about some weird things. Let’s say I have Mose and Mos
Moses in my English class. They have projects. I say Mose’s project (a project
belongs to Mose). I say Mos’s project (a project belongs to Mos). I say Moses’s
project (a project belongs to one of the Moseses). I say Moseses’ project (a
project belongs to both of the Moseses). I say Moses’ project (I don’t know who
has a project). Only one of my examples leaves me wondering who did the project—Moses’
project. It could mean more than one Mos did a project. It could mean that more
than one Mose did a project. It could mean, according to the rule wrencher,
that one of the Moseses did a project. The only thing it can’t mean is that
both of the Moseses did a project. I can only assume that the rule wrencher
didn’t want to pronounce the possessive word as “Moseses” because it sounds
awkward? Though the Moses family would be made up of the Moseses, right? Pronounced
“Moseses”? I’m being petty here, I know, but Jesus’ disciples literally means that there was more than one Jesu,
and they have disciples. Brussels’
capital building literally means there is more than one Brussel who take “ownership”
of the capital building. Diabetes’ victims
means there is more than one diabete that has victims.
You see, the rules
for punctuating possessives make it very clear
whether a word is singular or plural and whether something belongs to that
word. If there is a Mr. Moses and a Mrs. Moses, together they are the Moseses.
That’s the plural. If together they own something, like a house, it is the
Moseses’ house. If we’re only talking about the wallet that belongs to Mr.
Moses, it would be Mr. Moses’s wallet. That’s the punctuation rule. Those three
Moses examples are pronounced exactly the same way (Moseses, Moseses’, Moses’s)
but have decipherably different meanings. And it’s pet peeve number something or
other that people are messing with the rule for who knows what inconsistent
reason. I suggest that we should celebrate that there is a punctuation mark
that has simple, consistent, understandable, meaningful rules, and that any
reader or writer can use those rules to interpret or give meaning. So Mr. (or Mrs.)
I-Live-In-A-Different-Century-And-I-Think-I’ll-Evolve-The-Language-For-No-Particularly-Good-Reason-Except-To-Throw-In-An-Exception-To-A-Rule-That-Is-Perfectly-Easy-To-Understand-And-Apply,
please stop wrenching a rule that doesn’t need to be wrenched. In other words, “If
it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”
So you’ve now read another installment of The Red Pen. I probably gave you a
headache. Certainly I overwhelmed you with a large dose of sarcasm (pet peeve
double digit—dose is a word which is
not an alternate spelling for does). Some
of you are probably poised to quote stylebook notations to me. Some of you are
probably worried for my well-being and are prepared to talk me down from a
building ledge or advise me to “Don’t worry. Be happy.” The reality is I’m
fine. I’ve vented, and writers will go on placing flying commas wherever they
please. I’m certain of it.
