English Punctuation: Apostrophe

The POSSESSIVE APOSTROPHE

In most cases you simply need to add 's to a noun to show possession:

Plural nouns that do not end in s also follow this rule:

Ordinary (or common) nouns that end in s, both singular and plural, show possession simply by adding an ' after the s but proper nouns (names of people, cities, countries etc.) can form the possessive either by adding the 's or simply adding the ':

General notes: Many people want to know how to form the possessive of their own name when it ends in an 's' or when refering to the whole family, e.g. The Jones' children.

Today it is no longer considered incorrect to use either form (Jones's or Jones') and many largeorganisations now drop the ' completely (e.g. Barclays Bank,Missing Persons Bureau) when publishing their name.

The APOSTROPHE for CONTRACTION

The most common use of contracted apostrophes is for:

 The Comma

There are some general rules which you can apply when using the comma.

However, you will find that in English there are many other ways to use the comma to add to the meaning of a sentence or to emphasise an item, point or meaning.

Although we are often taught that commas are used to help us add 'breathing spaces' to sentences they are, in fact, more accurately used to organise blocks of thought or logical groupings. Most people will now use commas to ensure that meaning is clear and, despite grammatical rules, will drop the comma if their meaning is retained in the sentence.

A. Using the comma to separate phrases, words, or clauses in lists

1. a series of phrases

2. a series of nouns

3. a series of adjectives

4. a series of verbs

5. a series of clauses

B. Using the comma to enclose insertions or comments. The comma is placed on either side of the insertion.

C. Use the comma to mark off a participial phrase

D. Use the comma in 'tag questions'

E. Use to mark off interjections like 'please', 'thank you', 'yes', and 'no'

General notes:

1. Misplacing a comma can lose friends!

Putting a comma in the wrong place can lead to a sentence with a completely different meaning, look at these two examples:

English Punctuation

Punctuation is used to create sense, clarity and stress in sentences.

You use punctuation marks to structure and organise your writing. The most common of these are the period (or full stop in British English), the comma, the exclamation mark, the question mark, the colon and semi-colon, the quote, the apostrophe, the hyphen and dash, and parentheses and brackets. Capital letters are also used to help us organise meaning and to structure the sense of our writing.

You can quickly see why punctuation is important if you try and read this sentence which has no punctuation at all:

perhaps you dont always need to use commas periods colons etc to make sentences clear when i am in a hurry tired cold lazy or angry i sometimes leave out punctuation marks grammar is stupid i can write without it and dont need it my uncle Harry once said he was not very clever and i never understood a word he wrote to me i think ill learn some punctuation not too much enough to write to Uncle Harry he needs some help

Now let's see if punctuating it makes a difference!

Perhaps you don't always need to use commas, periods, colons etc. to make sentences clear. When I am in a hurry, tired, cold, lazy, or angry I sometimes leave out punctuation marks.

"Grammar is stupid! I can write without it and don't need it." my uncle Harry once said. He was not very clever and I never understood a word he wrote to me. I think I'll learn some punctuation - not too much, enough to write to Uncle Harry. He needs some help!

Use the punctuation section to learn how to make your English clearer and better organised.

The period (known as a full stop in British English) is probably the simplest of the punctuation marks to use.

You use it like a knife to cut the sentences to the required length. Generally, you can break up the sentences using the full stop at the end of a logical and complete thought that looks and sounds right to you. Use the full stop

1. to mark the end of a sentence which is not a question or an exclamation.

2. to indicate an abbreviation

Note: Dr and Mr and Mrs and Ms do not take a full stop nor do most abbreviations taken from the first capital letters such as MA Phd CNN

3. special case - three dots

Often you will see a sentence concluding with three dots. This indicates that only part of the sentence or text has been quoted or that it is being left up to the reader to complete the rest of the sentence.

3. fullstop after a single word

Sometimes a single word can form the sentence. In this case you place a fullstop after the word as you would in any other sentence.

Which is the 'best' English?

Trash or Rubbish? - Sorting out our English

Colour or color? Socks or sox? Organisations or Organizations? Underground or subway? Gas or petrol? Fall or Autumn? Candy or sweets? Cookie or biscuit? Centre or center, Trash or rubbish?

I've had a lot of furious emails from users about my terrible spelling. While I admit that the OEG may have had some glaring typos (fixed as soon as they were pointed out!) the emails are often concerned with spellings that are to do with regional differences in spoken and written English and not with my poor language skills. And they often come from readers who are convinced that there is only one 'good' English - theirs!

And we're living in a world where the frontiers between these 'regional differences' are becoming more and more blurred. Globalised mass communications, the Internet, an increasingly mobile workforce, and cheap international travel are all making us aware of an English language with many faces - a dynamic language, changing and moving with our times. Where the building blocks of the language - grammar, vocabulary, syntax - are plastic and dynamic and not rigid and static. Of course, if we still believe, as many of us were taught to believe at school, that there is only one English - ours! - then it may seem as if civilization as we'd like to keep knowing it is crumbling around our ears.

My family's experience is a good example of the way in which we are now exposed to a 'globalised' (should that be 'globalized'?) English and the cultural and geographic influences that contribute to our use of it: I was born in England, went to Australia when I was five, was entirely educated in Australia, spent several years in the USA and Canada, another eight in England and lived in France for over fifteen years. I married a Colombian, the common language at home is French, my wife speaks Spanish to our children, I speak English to them and they go to a French school. We live in a very small French village but have satellite TV with broadcasts from the USA and the UK, and ADSL Internet. My children's English is smattered with expressions and grammatical usage that comes from the USA and even from within fairly minority sub-sets of American English which they pick up from the music channels and YouTube, and they have kept traces of usage from our time in England. They use the Internet to chat with cousins and sisters in Australia where they use the truncated English that will surely develop one day into a recognised 'Internet English' (if it hasn't already!). Their English is a very different animal from mine and the shaping influences on it very different from those that shaped my own.

In my home, as in millions of others around the world, English is clearly a language that is moving and changing as fast as the times we live in. English speakers living in Bombay, Brighton or Boston are being exposed on an almost daily basis to the English used by their fellow English speakers around the globe.

Although we have a rich global mapping of English which makes it possible for English speakers to almost immediately fix a fellow English speaker to a geographical area, there is more that is similar among these English variations than is dissimilar. If there wasn't, English speakers from different parts of the world would have absolutely no hope of understanding each other! In most cases it is pronunciation and idiomatic expressions, not vocabulary or grammar that makes a fellow English speaker from anotherpart of the world, or sometimes even another part of the country, difficult to understand.

In the Online English Grammar I am open to the international and evolving character of English and, try at least, to highlight the differences between British and American English where they appear. I am always happy to receive new examples of these differences from users of the OEG!

I point out grammatical rules that may vary slightly depending on where you are as well as differences in spelling and usage. And have listed some of the main spelling variations between British and American English in an appendix.

The important thing to remember is that while spelling 'remember' as 'rember' is definitely wrong, spelling 'socks' as 'sox' is not! That saying 'She speak English really well' is definitely wrong wherever you are (the verb 'speak' must be third person 'speaks' or used in another tense such as 'spoke'), saying 'She speaks English real well' may not bewrong (it is acceptable to use 'real' rather than 'really' in informal American English.)

This may also slow the flow of emails from angry users who think it is a disgrace that I consistently spell 'center' as 'centre' - am I dyslexic?

Names of geographical formations

Adjectives relating to nationality nouns

Names of streets, buildings, parks etc.