Apostrophe Catastrophe: And Other Grammatical Grumbles

by Patrick Notchtree

Overview

The apostrophe causes more problems in the English language than any other aspect of grammar. Grown adults with a university education don't know how to use it properly, and our high streets are filled with hilarious examples of its misuse. Join the pedants as they revolt against the misuse of this essential piece of punctuation and with one simple rule learn how to use the apostrophe correctly – once and for all.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780750966726
Publisher:	The History Press
Publication date:	11/05/2015
Sold by:	INDEPENDENT PUB GROUP - EPUB - EBKS
Format:	eBook
Pages:	160
File size:	6 MB
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Patrick C. Notchtree is a former teacher who has taught grammar to thousands of children. He runs the website www.dreaded-apostrophe.com.

Read an Excerpt

Apostrophe Catastrophe

And Other Grammatical Grumbles

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By Patrick C. Notchtree

The History Press

Copyright © 2015 Patrick C. Notchtree
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-7509-6672-6

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CHAPTER 1

ONE EASY RULE

The apostrophe must be the most misunderstood and misused piece of punctuation in the English language. This is worsened by the fact that most people simply fail to understand what it does, and make it unnecessarily complicated. The result is that many people, in an effort to appear correct, use a scattergun approach, dropping in apostrophes every time the letter 's' ends a word – for plurals, possessives and contractions alike.

In fact, using the apostrophe correctly is easy – once you know the rule.

Notice I say 'the' rule. Despite the confusion about this and many variations, there is, in fact, just one place where an apostrophe is used. Just one. It really is easy to remember:

Use an apostrophe when letters are missing.

I have taught many children, mainly Year 6 (aged 10–11), this method over many years and 90 per cent of them have 'got it' immediately and never get it wrong again.

Explaining something in written form is not the same as interactive teaching, where the listeners respond and the teacher can adapt as they go along. I have tried to take this step by step and cover all the angles, but it means there is a lot of reading to do. Please be patient.

Those of you who were taught a multi-rule method (presumably unsuccessfully or why would you be here?) are probably now puzzled. How can there be just one rule which covers all uses of the dreaded apostrophe? I repeat:

Use an apostrophe when letters are missing.

Misuse often occurs where plurals are involved. Plural simply means more than one. So we see the famous greengrocer signs like:

Carrot's cheap today

But there is nothing missing here – it just means more than one carrot – so it should read:

Carrots cheap today

Another example:

Parent's are asked to supervise their children

Again, nothing is missing; it is a request to more than one parent to look after their kids. The correct form is:

Parents are asked to supervise their children

But the children belong to the parents, you say. True, no doubt, but the two words are not together in the sentence and the message is directed at parents, not children. Parents children would need an apostrophe – but before or after the 's'? Have no fear, all will be explained later.

So where do we use an apostrophe?

We use an apostrophe when letters are missing.

I will look at the obvious cases first. These are where we deliberately shorten a word or phrase and then use an apostrophe to show that letters are missing.

These are called contractions.

The list above does not contain every possible abbreviated form, but from that one can see how the apostrophe goes in place of the missing letters. Missing spaces do not get an apostrophe. Think of it this way: it was a space so there was nothing to go missing in the first place.

People often confuse you're and your. But now you know the rule, you need never confuse them again. You're is short for You are, while your means belonging to you, as in 'Your head is probably spinning by now'.

There, their and they're are often confused but there is a place, their means belonging to them and they're is short for they are.

English is a living language, and all such languages contain irregularities. One which is relevant to apostrophe usage is it's and its. It's is short for it is or it has as you see in the table above. Its means belonging to it, as in 'It's probably spun off its neck by now'. If you are uncertain which to use, say it in full, e.g. 'The world spins on it is axis' is plainly silly, so one should use its rather than it's.

Contractions – the shortening of words and phrases – is a common use of the apostrophe to show where letters have been left out. Most people get that and understand it fairly well. A lot of the confusion arises of the use of the dreaded apostrophe to show belonging, possession and similar relationships.

I have mentioned belonging already. So what about possessives? It is in fact the same rule.

CHAPTER 2

POSSESSIVES

PLURAL INITIALS

How often have you seen signs that say CD's for sale or similar? The MP's voted against the bill is another example.

These are plurals, nothing is missing, so the correct form is CDs and MPs. If your child writes that he or she gained four As at A level, be pleased also that he or she knows when not use an apostrophe. If they tell you they got four A's, I just hope English was not one of them!

This is by far where most of the confusion arises. Panic sets in as people think, 'Where shall I put the dreaded apostrophe?' But there is no need to panic. Keep calm; it's only an apostrophe. The same rule applies:

Use an apostrophe when letters are missing.

First, though, a little definition for readers for whom some time has passed since they were taught grammar, if at all. When we talk about nouns, these are the names of things, objects, etc. Table, dog, coat, child – these are all nouns. They don't have to be physical objects – dream, idea, thought are also nouns.

There are also pronouns – words that stand in for nouns: he, she, they, it. Each of these has a possessive form: his, her, their and its. That last one causes a lot of confusion, but more about its and it's later.

Other types of word are verbs, which are actions such as walk, run, think, often called 'doing words'.

Nouns and verbs can be modified or described. Adjectives are words that describe nouns: big table, small dog, black coat, noisy child, bad dream, good idea, clever thought and so on. Adverbs are words that describe verbs and often end in ly: walk slowly, run quickly, think carefully. I include these for the sake of completeness but adverbs don't usually cause a problem when it comes to apostrophes.

There is a class of nouns called Proper Nouns. Note I've used capital letters. This is because these are the names of people and places, etc. and so have capital letters; London, Stephen, America, Susan, Titanic, Seattle, Melbourne and so on. Notice Titanic got in there. The word 'ship' is a noun but ships usually have names, and those names are Proper Nouns, hence Titanic, Nautilus and so on.

Nouns can be singular or plural. Singular means there is just one: girl, boy, ship, coat. If we are writing about more than one of these – girls, boys, ships, coats – this is the plural form. Nothing is missing here so no apostrophe is needed. Adding the letter s is the most common way to make a noun plural in English. Some nouns remain the same in the plural form – sheep,deer for example. Others have plural forms going back to the roots of modern English, such as child of which the plural is children. But these different forms do not affect the way in which we use the dreaded apostrophe to show possession. It's still the same rule:

Use an apostrophe when letters are missing.

To understand this, we need first to take a trip back in time ...

CHAPTER 3

THE OLDEN DAYS

English is an old language, but an ever-changing one. Many people today find the English of Shakespeare hard to understand, but it is actually relatively modern in structure compared with English from earlier periods. It is to these earlier periods of English we must look for the roots of modern apostrophe usage.

I am also going to simplify matters, and having studied linguistics I know this may be oversimplification for some. But here the aim is to explain the dreaded apostrophe, not teach linguistics and Old or Middle English. So bear with me.

English, along with Dutch, Danish, Norwegian, Swedish, etc., is a Germanic language. It shares much in common with modern German, although a lot of vocabulary was later imported from French/Latin. Quick example: the German for foot is Fuss, for ball is Ball, so football is Fussball. (Note that in German, all nouns have a capital letter, not just Proper Nouns.) We get the word 'pedestrian' from the French/Latin side though. Some Germanic usage survives in English, particularly in North American English where some archaic forms remain in use – gotten for instance. The -en participle ending will be familiar to German speakers.

A simple sentence such as The girl catches the ball has a subject, a verb and an object. We have already learnt that a verb is a 'doing' word and a noun is the name of a 'thing'. In a sentence, a noun can be a subject or an object. The subject in a sentence (in this case The girl) is the noun 'doing' the verb, in this case, the catching. The object is the noun which is having something done to it, in this case, being caught, which is the ball. So:

The girl catches the ball.
Subject Verb
Object

or

Bill cooked supper.
Subject Verb
Object

They are not always in this order, for example the sentence below:

The child (was) bitten (by a) dog.
Object Verb
Subject

As the dog is doing the biting and the child is being bitten, the dog is the subject and the child is the object.

So you can see that different words have different jobs to do in a sentence.

In German, nouns follow a case system. This is a system of changes or modifications that a word undergoes depending on which job it is doing in the sentence.

For example, in German the subject of the sentence is in the nominative case and the object of the sentence is in the accusative case. As we have seen, in the simple sentence, The girl catches the ball. the verb is catches. The girl is the subject of the sentence because she is doing the catching. The ball is the object of the sentence because that is what gets caught. So:

The girl catches the ball
Nominative Subject
Accusative Object

The case which denotes possession is called the genitive case. So a subject (in the example below, the man) which possesses something will be in the genitive case. As in:

The man's coat
Genitive

Like German, old forms of English (which were very different to our modern language) used a genitive case ending to show possession. This was normally -es. For our purposes, that will do. For example, the English The man's coat in German is Der Mantel des Mannes (The coat of the man). Note the -es ending on Mann to show possession.

So now let's (let us) go back a few hundred years in English. Geoffrey Chaucer wrote his famous Canterbury Tales in the English of his time. What today we call 'The Knight's Tale' he wrote as:

Knyghtes Tale

Note the -es ending as in German to denote possession (The tale of the knight). He also writes about the Kynges court and Goddes love. But in modern English, of all varieties, the 'e' is missed out. Coupled with modern spelling, Kynges court becomes King's court and Goddes love becomes God's love. The old -es possessive form in English is now missing, and as I am sure you will now remember we

Use an apostrophe when letters are missing.

We can use this insight to help us place apostrophes correctly. Remember above I talked about Parents children. Does the apostrophe come before or after the 's'? If we pretend we are Chaucer, it becomes easy.

In the plural we could say parents's and drop only the 'e' but having 's's' seems a bit silly here so the whole es goes missing to be replaced by the apostrophe, leaving parents' as the plural possessive form.

Note that this applies only to the possessive form of plural nouns. The question of possession with singular nouns that end in s is a different matter and is dealt with a little later.

Take the boys coat. Unless several boys share a coat (unlikely) we can assume this is one boy and his coat, so the boyes coat shortens to the boy's coat.

If we take the boys coats we are not sure now whether this is one boy with a lot of coats or lots of boys and all their coats.

In the first case, we have one boy to which we add the -es to show possession, to give us boyes. Today, the -e is missing, replaced by the apostrophe to give boy's so the apostrophe ends up before the 's'.

In the second case, we have a plural boys to which we add the -es to show possession, to give us boyses, Today, the -es is missing, replaced by the apostrophe to give boys' so the apostrophe ends up after the 's'.

This example clearly shows why an apostrophe, not just included but included in the correct place, can be important. Its use and correct positioning can radically alter the meaning of what is being written.

Something that gets people confused is a word like children. (Making a plural with -en is another Germanic throwback.) Because they are not using the correct rule they assume that because children is plural, the apostrophe must come after the 's'. So we get childrens' which is wrong. But my consistent system takes care of that. Think it through – take the example childrens toys. We can safely guess there is more than one child involved here because of the word children.

The 'e' goes missing and the apostrophe ends up correctly before the 's'.

CHAPTER 4

THE BOOK OF CASSIUS

People sometimes get confused when a singular noun ends in the letter 's'. Because of that 's', panic sets in and people wonder which rule to apply. But remember, there is only one rule. Use it.

In the case of a book belonging to Cassius, we will use the 'Chaucer' rule to place the apostrophe.

Just apply the rule and the apostrophe will end up in the correct place. This clearly demonstrates that Cassius is singular, i.e. there is just one Cassius we are talking about, and he possesses the book. To omit the last s as some do fails to make it clear there is just one Cassius. Of course, one might argue that because there is just one book, it's pretty obvious there is one Cassius. But imagine we were discussing more than one book, a library even! If in that case we were faced with Cassius' books the reader might have doubt as to whether the many books belonged to one Cassius or many. But applying the rule and being consistent makes it clear.

Of course, Cassius is a Proper Noun, somebody's name. But the same rule applies to ordinary nouns that end in s, such as actress or princess.

I think we can safely assume that the situation where several princesses share a single gown is highly unlikely.

Now we can see that there really is only one rule:

Use an apostrophe when letters are missing.

We have covered both contractions (things like cannot becoming can't) as well as possession (where the apostrophe stands in for the missing possessive word ending that is no longer used in modern English). And you should now even understand why, in the case of possession, it sometimes comes before the s and other times after the s.

CHAPTER 5

TEST YOURSELF

So why not try out your new-found knowledge?

Coming up is a little story which is designed to test the use of the dreaded apostrophe – dreaded no longer I hope. I suggest you use a pencil – then you can try it out on friends and family as well. I am not going to mark it – you're grown up enough to have got this far so you can mark your own. (Note the use of you're and your in that sentence.)

Good luck.

THE SHOPPING TRIP

The boys and girls decided to go to town for a look round because there wasnt much to do at home. Johns coat was torn, so he borrowed his sisters. She wasnt going with them.

'Lets go round the shops,' said Susans brother, Stephen. The childrens parents had given them some money to spend.

'Dont you lose it,' Richards father had said to him, so Richards money was in his pocket when he set out, but Alans had a zip so he ended up carrying Richards money as well as his own so they couldnt lose it.

In the shop, Alans zip got stuck, but Lucys skill got it open again.

'Thats good,' said Alan, 'both Richards and my moneys in there. Now its OK and we cant get into trouble.'

The boys money was more than the girls, but theyd decided to share it equally. Then some of the boys said they wouldnt share it and the girls said theyd broken the agreement.

'Share it out,' said Anne. 'Its what you said youd do!'

'No, cant,' said David.

'Perhaps wed better,' said Richard, 'Its what we said wed do.'

'OK,' said David, 'I expect youre right but Im not very happy.'

The boys money and the girls money was all put in Johns coat pocket because none of the girls coat pockets were deep enough.

The childrens afternoon was spent looking round, but they couldnt find anything they wanted to buy, so, in the end, the boys and girls went off to their homes.

'Wow!' said Johns sister. 'Whats all this money doing in my coat pocket? Im rich!'

Well, did you cheat? Time now to check your answers.

(Continues...)

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Excerpted from Apostrophe Catastrophe by Patrick C. Notchtree. Copyright © 2015 Patrick C. Notchtree. Excerpted by permission of The History Press.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

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Table of Contents

Contents

Title,
Introduction,
One Easy Rule,
Possessives,
The Olden Days,
The Book of Cassius,
Test Yourself,
Some Other Grammatical Grumbles,
Frequently Asked Questions,
Postscript,
By the Same Author,
Copyright,