{"id":45,"date":"2009-04-28T10:01:34","date_gmt":"2009-04-28T10:01:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.language-museum.com\/blog\/?p=45"},"modified":"2009-05-29T15:27:41","modified_gmt":"2009-05-29T15:27:41","slug":"apostrophes-made-easy-well-easier","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.language-museum.com\/blog\/2009\/04\/28\/apostrophes-made-easy-well-easier\/","title":{"rendered":"Apostrophes made easy. Well, easier."},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/upload.wikimedia.org\/wikipedia\/commons\/5\/57\/Apostrophe.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.language-museum.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/04\/apostrophe.png\" alt=\"Apostrophe\" title=\"Apostrophe\" width=\"75\" height=\"100\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-146\" \/><\/a>I am happy to admit that I am occasionally confused by apostrophes, something I attribute to spending my formative years at schools where calligraphy with the headteacher was sometimes more important than grammar.<\/p>\n<p>Anyway, now that I&#8217;m all grown up and like to see writing that is grammatically correct, I&#8217;ve been working hard to make sure I always put the apostrophe in the right place. Apostrophes have two uses, and one of them I am fine with: showing the omission of letters (e.g. &#8220;it&#8217;s&#8221;\/&#8221;it is&#8221;). It&#8217;s the other that I, and probably most others, stumble over.<\/p>\n<p>The other use of the apostrophe is to show possession (&#8220;the girl&#8217;s pen&#8221;). The <a href=\"http:\/\/www.capital-letters.com.au\/possessive.html\">most useful<\/a> (although a little childlike!) way I have found for remembering the correct grammar is thinking of the tail of the apostrophe pointing to whoever has ownership. So:<\/p>\n<p>The pen of the girl = the girl&#8217;s pen. There is only one girl, so the apostrophe is pointing to the word &#8216;girl&#8217;.<br \/>\nThe pen of the girls (more than one girl) = the girls&#8217; pen. There is more than one girl, so the apostrophe is pointing to the plural of girl, &#8216;girls&#8217;.<\/p>\n<p>Try testing your apostrophe knowledge <a href=\"http:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/skillswise\/words\/grammar\/punctuation\/apostrophes\/quiz.shtml\">here<\/a>. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I am happy to admit that I am occasionally confused by apostrophes, something I attribute to spending my formative years at schools where calligraphy with the headteacher was sometimes more important than grammar. Anyway, now that I&#8217;m all grown up and like to see writing that is grammatically correct, I&#8217;ve been working hard to make [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26,27],"tags":[29,28],"class_list":["post-45","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-grammar","category-hints-and-tips","tag-apostrophe","tag-punctuation"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.language-museum.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.language-museum.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.language-museum.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.language-museum.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.language-museum.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=45"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/www.language-museum.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":147,"href":"http:\/\/www.language-museum.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45\/revisions\/147"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.language-museum.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.language-museum.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=45"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.language-museum.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=45"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}