Apostrophe

Apostrophe

There are two broad rules that govern apostrophe usage: contractions and possessive nouns.

contractions

Apostrophes for contractions are the most common usage of the apostrophe, and very straightforward. They signal omitted letters that combine two words into one.

Don’t: Do not

Hasn’t: Has not

She’ll: She will

He’s: He has/is

Single-word contractions, however, do not use an apostrophe.

Mr: Mister

Ltd: Limited

Fig: Figure

Note: Australian grammar does not use a full stop after a single-word contraction.

possesive nouns

A possessive noun signals that one noun is possessed by another.

Anna’s horse: the horse belonging to Anna

Richard’s wallet: the wallet belonging to Richard

The song’s tempo: the tempo at which the song plays

The exception is possessive pronouns, which never use an apostrophe.

His

Hers

Theirs

Yours

When a noun is possessed by a plural noun the apostrophe is placed after the plural ‘-s’.

The horse’s hay: the hay that belongs to the one horse

The horses’ hay: the hay that belongs to multiple horses

Note: Be wary of plural nouns that do not end with an ‘-s’, like ‘men’, ‘women’ and ‘children’. Possessives of these words require an apostrophe.

The women’s meeting

The men’s coats

The children’s show

Further, if the possessive noun is made up of two separate nouns, place an apostrophe at the end of the second noun.

Matt and John’s farm

The employee and employer’s quarrel

A plumbers and electricians’ union

Single possessive nouns ending in ‘s’ can cause a lot of confusion when placing an apostrophe.

Is it Thomas’ boat or Thomas’s boat?

Opinions may differ, but generally it is good practice to add an ‘apostrophe -s’ regardless if the extra ‘s’ is pronounced (i.e. Jesus’s disciples).