You need to type out the whole sentence so be very careful with your punctuation and spelling. This time you need to type out the words that make the contraction. You need to type in the correct answer. Focus on the words that are highlighted in green.

Many guides recommend apostrophes whether the single letters are lowercase (as in “minding your p’s and q’s”) or uppercase (as in “A’s and S’s”). Similar examples of notable names ending in an ⟨s⟩ that are often given a possessive apostrophe with no additional ⟨s⟩ include Dickens and Williams. Its use for indicating plural “possessive” forms was not standard before the middle of the 19th century.citation needed For example, the word “glass’s” is the singular possessive form of the noun “glass”. English spelling retained many inflections that were not pronounced as syllables, notably verb endings (“-est”, “-eth”, “-es”, “-ed”) and the noun ending “-es”, which marked either plurals or possessives, also known as genitives (see Possessive apostrophe, below).

Because typewriter apostrophes are now often automatically converted to punctuation apostrophes by word processing and similar software, the punctuation apostrophe routinely appears in documents produced by non-professionals (albeit sometimes incorrectly—see § Smart Quotes below). In ASCII, it is used to represent a punctuation mark (such as right single quotation mark, left single quotation mark, apostrophe punctuation, vertical line, or prime) or a modifier letter (such as apostrophe modifier or acute accent). This is the form of the modern punctuation apostrophe (’), (which is also known informally as the typeset apostrophe, the typographic apostrophe or the curly apostrophe) and of the right single quotation mark. The Geographical Names Board of New South Wales, Australia, excludes possessive apostrophes from place names, along with other punctuation.

• Do not use apostrophes with regular plural nouns that do not show possession.
• The apostrophe can be used to show who things belong to.
• You can just add an apostrophe to show the feet belong to the brothers.
• This time you need to type out the words that make the contraction.

List of typographical symbols and punctuation marks

For example, the French word pin’s (from English pin) is used (with the apostrophe in both singular and plural) for collectible lapel pins. It is often criticised as a form of hypercorrection coming from a chicken road game widespread ignorance of the proper use of the apostrophe or of punctuation in general. As an exception, the Oxford Companion to the English Language (2018) reports that, in addition to Joneses etc., standard apostrophe usage does continue “in family names, especially if they end in -s, as in keeping up with the Jones’s”. The vast majority of English references published from the late 20th century onwards disparage the use of apostrophes in family-name plurals, for example identifying Joneses as correct and Jones’s as incorrect.

Proofreading for apostrophes

Truss says this usage is no longer considered proper in formal writing. A 2004 report by British examination board OCR stated that “the inaccurate use of the apostrophe is so widespread as to be almost universal”. Finally, in “scientific” transliteration of Cyrillic script, the apostrophe usually represents the soft sign ь, though in “ordinary” transliteration it is usually omitted. Furthermore, an apostrophe may be used to indicate a glottal stop in transliterations. For many numbers and symbols, a useful alternative is to write out the numbers as words (e.g. thousands instead of 1000s or 1000’s, and ampersands instead of &s or &’s). While many guides discourage using an apostrophe in all numbers/dates, many other guides encourage using an apostrophe for numbers or are divided on the issue; for example, the Australian Government Style Manual recommends “Binary code uses 0’s and 1’s” but recommends “the 2020s”.

Adrian Room, in his English Journal article “Axing the Apostrophe”, argued that apostrophes are unnecessary, and context will resolve any ambiguity. Lewis Carroll made greater use of apostrophes, and frequently used sha’n’t, with an apostrophe in place of the elided ll as well as the more usual o. George Bernard Shaw, a proponent of English spelling reform on phonetic principles, argued that the apostrophe was mostly redundant. UK supermarket chain Tesco omits the mark where standard practice would require it. A 2008 survey found that nearly half of the UK adults polled were unable to use the apostrophe correctly.

• For example, the word “glass’s” is the singular possessive form of the noun “glass”.
• This is the form of the modern punctuation apostrophe (’), (which is also known informally as the typeset apostrophe, the typographic apostrophe or the curly apostrophe) and of the right single quotation mark.
• Smart quote features also often fail to recognise situations when a prime rather than an apostrophe is needed; for example, incorrectly rendering the latitude 49° 53′ 08″ as 49° 53’ 08”.
• If the noun after “of” is a building, an object, or a piece of furniture, then no apostrophe is needed!
• You need to type in the correct answer.

For most singular nouns, the ending “‘s” is added; e.g., “the cat’s whiskers”. The apostrophe (’, ‘) is a punctuation mark, and sometimes a diacritical mark, in languages that use the Latin alphabet and some other alphabets. In order to pluralise a regular noun all you usually need is to add an ‘s’. One of the most common mistakes that people make when it comes to apostrophes is using them in plurals ending in an ‘s’.

Using apostrophes

The shape of the apostrophe originated in manuscript writing, as a point with a downwards tail curving clockwise. The Apostrophe Protection Society, founded by retired journalist John Richards in 2001, closed in 2019, after a period of 18 years of campaigning for its preservation and correct usage. John C. Wells, emeritus professor of phonetics at University College London, says the apostrophe is “a waste of time”. In his book American Speech, linguist Steven Byington stated of the apostrophe that “the language would be none the worse for its abolition”.

Watch: Apostrophes for possession

Most respected authorities recommend that practically all singular nouns, including those ending with a sibilant sound, have possessive forms with an extra ⟨s⟩ after the apostrophe so that the spelling reflects the underlying pronunciation. By the 18th century, an apostrophe with the addition of an ⟨s⟩ was regularly used for all possessive singular forms, even when the letter ⟨e⟩ was not omitted (as in “the gate’s height”). The plural genitive did not use the “-es” inflection, and since many plural forms already consisted of the “-s” or “-es” ending, using the apostrophe in place of the elisioned ⟨e⟩ could lead to singular and plural possessives of a given word having the exact same spelling. Use apostrophes to form the plural of lowercase letters, abbreviations with periods, and some uppercase letters. Do not use apostrophes for personal pronouns, the relative pronoun who, or for noun plurals.Apostrophes should not be used with possessive pronouns because possessive pronouns already show possession—they do not need an apostrophe. In ASCII, it may be used to represent any of left single quotation mark, right single quotation mark, apostrophe, vertical line or prime (punctuation marks), or an acute accent (modifier letters).

Possessive apostrophe

In C++, since C++14, apostrophes can be included as optional digit separators in numeric literals. Some languages, such as Perl, PHP, and many shell languages, treat single quoted strings as “raw” strings, while double quoted strings have expressions (such as “$variable”) replaced with their values when interpreted. Some programming languages, like Pascal, use the ASCII apostrophe to delimit string literals. Smart quote features also often fail to recognise situations when a prime rather than an apostrophe is needed; for example, incorrectly rendering the latitude 49° 53′ 08″ as 49° 53’ 08”.

The British pop group Hear’Say famously made unconventional use of an apostrophe in its name. Some have argued that its use in mass communication by employees of well-known companies has led to the less literate assuming it to be standard and adopting the habit themselves. The term is believed to have been coined in the middle of the 20th century by a teacher of languages working in Liverpool, at a time when such mistakes were common in the handwritten signs and advertisements of greengrocers (e.g., Apple’s 1/- a pound, Orange’s 1/6 a pound).

The practice, once common and acceptable (see Historical development), comes from the identical sound of the plural and possessive forms of most English nouns. Apostrophes used in a non-standard manner to form noun plurals are known as greengrocers’ apostrophes or grocers’ apostrophes or grocer’s apostrophes. The English possessive of French nouns ending in a silent ⟨s⟩, ⟨x⟩, or ⟨z⟩ is addressed by various style guides. When the noun is a normal plural, with an added ⟨s⟩, no extra ⟨s⟩ is added in the possessive, and it is pronounced accordingly; so “the neighbours’ garden” (there is more than one neighbour owning the garden) is standard rather than “the neighbours’s garden”.

Forming plurals of lowercase letters

Cat is a singular noun so you need to add an apostrophe and ‘s’ to show that the tail belongs to the cat. The C programming language (and many derived languages like C++, Java, C#, and Scala) uses apostrophes to delimit a character literal. In Microsoft Word for Windows, holding down the Control key while typing two apostrophes will produce a single punctuation apostrophe. Many earlier (pre-1985) computer displays and printers rendered the ASCII apostrophe as a punctuation apostrophe, and rendered the backtick (freestanding grave accent symbol, `, 0x60, 96) as a matching left single quotation mark.

Common mistakes

For singular forms, the modern possessive or genitive inflection is a survival from certain genitive inflections in Old English, for which the apostrophe originally marked the loss of the old ⟨e⟩ (for example, lambes became lamb’s). Do not use apostrophes with regular plural nouns that do not show possession. There is no need for apostrophes indicating a plural on capitalized letters, numbers, and symbols (though keep in mind that some editors, teachers, and professors still prefer them).

But its (without an apostrophe) means ‘belonging to it’, the bird spread its wings. These two words cause confusion because they break the rules! Sometimes we join two words together, like would’ve for would have. The apostrophe shows where this has happened.

This shows that Mittens thinks the magpie belongs to her.Plural nouns work in a similar way. Usually if the noun already ends in s, then the apostrophe just brings itself. If that noun doesn’t end in s, the apostrophe brings one with it.This shows the crown belongs to the magpie. If an item belongs to something, the apostrophe shows us who, by sitting at the end of the noun. First, remind yourself how apostrophes are used for contraction by watching this video. In the Lisp family of programming languages, an apostrophe is shorthand for the quote operator.

If you tend to leave out apostrophes, check every word that ends in -s or -es to see if it needs an apostrophe.If you put in too many apostrophes, check every apostrophe to see if you can justify it with a rule for using apostrophes. His, her, its, my, yours, ours are all possessive pronouns.However, indefinite pronouns, such as one, anyone, other, no one, and anybody, can be made possessive. A contraction is a word (or set of numbers) in which one or more letters (or numbers) have been omitted. They are probably right, but unfortunately the apostrophe has not beenabolished yet, and it is a blunt fact that the incorrect use of apostrophes willmake your writing look illiterate more quickly than almost any other kind ofmistake.

The author and language commentator Anu Garg has called for the abolition of the apostrophe, stating “Some day this world would be free of metastatic cancers, narcissistic con men, and the apostrophe”. George Bernard Shaw called them “uncouth bacilli”, referring to the apostrophe-like shape of many bacteria. Truss comments that “the naming of Hear’Say in 2001 was … a significant milestone on the road to punctuation anarchy”.