Nick's Grammar Slammer (Part 2)

Along with Eats, Shoots and Leaves - this is great!

Possessives
The ending 's is used to indicate the singular possessive of any word that does not end in s:
President Bush's victory
The monkey's nuts.

For the possessive of singular words that end in s, the traditional rule is to use 's:
Pythagoras's principle
Mr Jones's letter.

However, some writers now adopt a more streamlined approach and prefer a bare apostrophe for all words ending in s. For example:
Jacques Delors' limousine
Boris' faux-pas.

Note that the possessive form of it does not take an apostrophe - in fact, the only personal possessive pronoun with an apostrophe is one's.
The dog was chasing its tail.

Use a bare apostrophe for regular plural possessives:
The families' cars
The doctors' conference.

For irregular plurals, use 's:
The men's room
Sheep's eyes.

Elision
The apostrophe is also used to indicate that part of a word (or words) is missing. Examples are I've, didn't, can't, it's and doesn't.

Plurals
Never use apostrophes to make a plural.
Not three book's but three books
Not six MP's but six MPs
Not the 1990's but the 1990s.

However, some people argue that apostrophised plurals should be allowed where they make the meaning clearer. For example, how would you write p's and q's, or do's and don'ts? But as a general rule, the grocer's plural is unmatched in its power to undermine the credibility of both message and writer.



Contributor: Jane Smith & Nick Smith