Apostrophes

Proper nouns in the possessive case

Use ’s for the possessive case in names and surnames ending in s:

James's ball      Charles’s paper

Names of organisations and products

Always check the formal name of the organisation and include the apostrophe if it forms part of the name. 

Expressions of time

Use an apostrophe to help mark singular expressions of time:

a day’s journey     the year’s cycle 

With a plural expression of time, do not use an apostrophe:

a few months notice      a few weeks notice

Curly versus straight apostrophes

If you're typing text directly into the html editor in the CMS and type an apostrophe, you’ll get a straight apostrophe – '. But our site requires curly apostrophes – ’.

To insert curly apostrophes, you can copy and paste them from Word.