How to use the apostrophe properly

Apostrophed. Yep, I made that word up. (Or at least I think I did.) That’s how I felt, though, after I scrolled past a LinkedIn post. The writer had abused and misused this poor piece of punctuation. She needs an editor to help her learn how to use the apostrophe properly.

Ooh baby! Today’s blog felt soo good to write! This one is for the dreamer’s, the mover’s, the shaker’s, the world shifter’s! You are solid gold baby!

She’s excited, no doubt about that. She blogs. That’s good. She seems upbeat, which is positive. She left out commas, which I can get over. But the unnecessary apostrophes made me cringe.

She wanted to make her words plural, which she did by adding s. Somewhere along the line she must have learned about ‘s, and the rules behind it didn’t stick as well as the idea that if you add an s, you add an apostrophe.

Two essential roles

Why do people have such a hard time with the apostrophe? Why is it so misunderstood?

We have English grammar rules to blame.

Let’s take a look.

The apostrophe has two essential roles:

In in contractions, it fills in for missing letters.
It shows possession.

Contractions, or the case of missing letters

Most people get the apostrophe right when it comes to contractions and missing letters. For example, they understand “do not” becomes “don’t,” “can not” becomes “can’t,” and “does not” becomes “doesn’t.” Those all follow the logical premise that if you put two words together, when you take out a letter — in this example the “o” in “not” — you have to put the apostrophe in its place.

Most people will get this one right, too: “will not” becomes “won’t.” Rascally old English messes with the rule and changes the first word as well as removing an “o” to make this word change. You’re probably also OK with “I’d” for “I had” or “I would.”

There are a few tricky ones that people tend to mess up, probably because the word can be used with or without an apostrophe, for different meaning.

For example, “let’s” is a contraction of “let us.” “Lets” is a verb meaning to leave, give use of or to allow (among others).

Or this example, “you’re” is a contraction for “you are.” “Your” is a pronoun showing possession.

Another example, “it’s” is a contraction for “it is.” “Its” is a pronoun, showing possession.

Those last two examples lead nicely into the second use of the apostrophe:

Possession, or who has what

Apostrophes often are used to show possession. If you have something or own something, it is yours. It can be something you can’t hold in your hand, either, like your ideas or your fantastic personality.

If we’re talking about a cat, for example, and we want to show possession of the cat — who has it — we can say: “The cat is mine.” “The cat is yours.” “The cat is his (or hers).” “The cat is ours.” “The cat is theirs.”

But what it we want to use someone’s name? Or a specific noun, like company? In our example, it becomes: “The cat is Cathy’s.” “The cat is the company’s.” “The cat is the school’s.”

In those instances, the ‘s shows possession. It tells the reader that the cat belongs to Cathy, the company or the school. It’s a shorter way of saying, “The cat belongs to Cathy.”

Easy way to remember which is which

How do you keep them straight, if you realize you’ve been messing them up? Can you learn how to use the apostrophe properly? Absolutely. Follow these tips:

First, consider if you’ve dropped a letter or two and the apostrophe is filling in for missing letters, making a contraction. Can you read the sentence and put in the full words to make sense?

For example: “Let’s go to the store” can be read as “Let us go to the store.”

If it makes sense, then you’ve used the apostrophe correctly as a contraction.

For possession, add “belongs to” to your sentence.

For example: “The employee’s computer was hacked” can be read as “The computer that belongs to the employee was hacked.”

If it makes sense, then you’ve used the apostrophe correctly for possession.

Those are simple examples. Sometimes, sentences get complicated, but if you stop and think about if something “belongs to” someone or something, then you probably need the apostrophe.

I say probably, because English throws in those rule-breakers.

Rule breakers

Remember the “its” example above? “Its” without the apostrophe shows possession when you have a neutral object that has something that belongs to it. “Its cat,” is correct.

“There,” “they’re” and “their” are tricky, too. “There” shows a place. “He put the book there.” In this case, “there” indicates a place or location.

“They’re” is a contraction for “they are.” If you can change the sentence to “they are” instead of “they’re,” you’ve got the apostrophe correct for the contraction.

“Their” shows possession for a plural pronoun. If the cat belongs to a couple, it is “their cat.”

(To make it even more confusing, “It’s theirs,” means the cat belongs to them. But maybe we don’t want to go there.)