English 98: That Floaty Comma

I’ve been asked by a few people to do a quick post on apostrophes or as I’ve heard it put by kids at my son’s school, “that comma that floats up there at the top.”  *drags out her Remedial English soap box and hops on up*

The apostrophe is one of the most misused punctuation marks out there.  Correctly, it’s used to show a contraction, possesion, and (though I just avoid it myself) the plural of lower case letters. 

Don’t you want to pod him?  This is the contration of do not.  These are relatively simple and I rarely see these bungled.  This is the main job of an apostrophe.  I even like to use two in words like sha’n't, though it is antiquated and almost never used now (What??  I like pretending I’m old and British!).

Mynxee’s Cynabal has a sexy paintjob!  This is a correct use of possession and for the most part, this concept is pretty easy.  The tricky part is when it becomes involved.  However, you can avoid a mistake by remembering the apostrophe’s original job: showing a contraction.  It’s is a contraction meaning it is.  When you want to show that it possesses, you leave out the apostrophe all together.  The Cynabal has a steamy shot of Roc Wieler on its hull.

I made sure to dot my i’s and cross my t’s.  It is correct to show the plural of LOWER CASE letters with an apostrophe.  However, as I said, I prefer avoiding this and use the upper case instead.

An apostrophe is NOT used to show plural numbers, acronyms, or upper case letters.

I love the 80’s.  I love the ’80s!

POS’s take too long to kill!  POSes take too long to kill!  (Keep in mind you still use an apostrophe to show possesion here:  a POS’s guns.)

I left out the E’s in my letter.  I left out the Es in my letter.

Tagged as: apostrophe, English, grammar, pet peeves