(') APOSTROPHE

The Apostrophe in English

The apostrophe in English is used in:

• • contractions 

  • possessives

  • unusual plurals 

Apostrophes in Contractions

A contraction is one word made by combining two words and replacing one or more letters with an apostrophe. In standard English, this generally happens only with a small number of conventional items, mostly involving verbs. For example:

• • do not  ➡️   don’t

  • they are ➡️  they’re

  • should not ➡️  shouldn’t 

  • he will ➡️  he’ll 

  • what is ➡️  what’s

Note that the contraction it’s (short for it is or it has) can easily be confused with the possessive its which has no apostrophe.

Contractions are informal and should not be used in formal writing. They can also pose punctuation problems, so it is a good idea to avoid them entirely. 

A few words which were contractions long ago are still conventionally written with apostrophes, for example: o'clock (of the clock) and Hallowe'en (Halloweven).

Apostrophes in Possessives

Apostrophes are used to show that a thing or person belongs to somebody.

This is called possession. The basic rule is: a possessive form is spelled with 's at the end. 

• • • Adam’s car

    • Lisa's job 

    • my sister's boyfriend 

    • children's socks 

    • women's clothing 

    • a week's work 

This rule applies in most cases even with a name ending in s: 

• • • Thomas's car 

    • the bus's arrival 

    • James's brother 

    • John Davis's office 

There are three types of exception. 

1.     A plural noun which already ends in s takes only a following apostrophe: 

• • • the girls' changing room 

    • my parents' anniversary 

    • two weeks' work 

    • the boys’ basketball team

    • the kids’ toys

To help you remember the rule: we don't pronounce these words with two esses, and so we don't write two esses.

2.     A name ending in s takes only an apostrophe if the possessive form is not pronounced with an extra s. For example: 

• • • Aristophanes' plays 

    • Socrates' philosophy 

    • Ulysses' companions 

    • for goodness’ sake

3.     Pronouns. For example: 

• • • He found his keys. 

    • Which seats are yours? 

    • The cat licked its paws. 

    • Whose is this pen?

Pay particular attention to the spelling of two possessives: its and whose. These words never take an apostrophe, although they are often confused with these:

it’s is a contraction of it is or of it has

who’s is a contraction of who is or of who has

!!!NOTE 1!!! When you add an apostrophe-s or an apostrophe alone to form a possessive, the thing that comes before the apostrophe must be a real English word in the correct form (singular or plural). For example:

A shop that sells shoes for ladies is ladies’ shoe shop, and all of that lady's shoes might have been bought there. 

!!!NOTE 2!!! Apostrophe in possessives causes some serious problems and not everybody agrees on the same rules. You may find other rules of using the apostrophe and people who will argue that theirs is the correct one. If you'd like to find out more about this read this article: How to Make Words that End in “S” Possessive. For the sake of the e-learning tasks please use the rules above.

Unusual plurals

As a general rule, we don’t use an apostrophe in writing plural forms. 

Do not use an apostrophe in:

• • • common contractions such as quake, flu, phone

    • plurals of initials and abbreviations (e.g. several TVs, MPs, PhDs)

    • plurals of numbers (e.g. 100s, the 1990s, the 1700s)

    • plurals of proper names (e.g. They are going out with the Joneses tonight.)

The only exceptions where you would use an apostrophe to make a plural form are:

• decades – when abbreviating decades of time use an apostrophe before words like ’70s and ’80s, as it makes it easier for the reader to understand by signifying the missing ‘19’. 

So write either the 1990s or the ’90s. Whichever form you choose to use – be consistent.

!!!NOTE!!!

• • • • the 1970s  = the ’70s 

      • but: a man in his 70s.

• pluralising of letters written as words – an apostrophe should be used when an individual letter is pluralised. For example:

  • • • ‘How many m’s are there in accommodation?'

      • It is very bad style to overuse e.g.’s and i.e.’s in your writing. 

The apostrophe in Polish

In Polish the apostrophe is used:

• to separate the root of a foreign word ending in a silent letter when a Polish inflectional ending is added, for example:

  • • • czytał Joyce’a, pracowała w college’u

• with foreign names ending in consonant + y in the genitive (dopełniacz), the dative (celownik) and the accusative case (biernik):

  • • • widzę Murphy’ego, mówiłam Murphy’emu

      • twórczość Valéry’ego

but

• • • • widziałam się z Murphym, słyszałeś o Murphym?

      • nie słyszałam o Valérym

• in foreign words ending in a silent letter when a Polish word formation suffix is added, for example:

  • • • software’owy, apple’owski

• in year numbers when the first two digits have been omitted, for example:

  • • • Wrzesień ’39, Solidarność ’80.

For more information on the use of the apostrophe in Polish see:

• • • Wolański 2008, pp. 63–64

    • Mitchell 2012, pp. 248

    • Dobrysłownik.pl

Entering the apostrophe

The apostrophe looks like a closing single quotation mark.

When the apostrophe comes before a word, like in contractions of year numbers (e.g. '98), the text editor may automatically change it into a single opening quotation mark. In order to get the correct symbol you might need to type two apostrophes (opening and closing) and then delete the first one (see below).