We English speakers need to talk about one of the smallest parts of our grammar that when misused is a colossally, hideously repulsive addition to any sentence; THE APOSTROPHE. There are two points I would like to cover. The first section covers the most common misconceptions about apostrophes and how people often misuse them, and the second shares an interesting theory on the origins of this piece of punctuation.
PART I The word itself comes from Greek meaning “to turn away from.” A fitting word, as turned around is where it gets many people. You should see the Facebook advertisements in this area of the country. In fact, I'll probably start posting the ones I find, since there is at least one criminanl apostrophe mooning its readers per week. In English, we are supposed to use apostrophes to indicate contractions or possession. Such as: I can’t go to the concert because it’s John’s Birthday.” (Much easier than saying: “I cannot go to the concert because this is the day on which we celebrate John having been born.) In that case, the apostrophe was added correctly to “can” and “not,” effectively joining the two words and representing the missing “n” in CANNOT (#contractions) and it works with the pronoun “John” to make a genitive or personal case, telling us that John has a Birthday. Now, things get ugly when we forget that apostrophes do not function as indicators of plurality. EXAMPLE: “We have Christmas Wreath’s in!” “A message to all parent’s…” “I’d like you to take the paper’s to the office.” The instances of such butchery are endless. Here’s another common one - WRITTEN ADDRESSES SUCH AS THOSE FOUND ON ENVELOPES: “From: the Johnston’s…” Or, “To: the Weichman’s…” That’s actually the best way to explain why the above 5 examples are wrong. Saying that you want to address a letter to the Weichman’s house or estate or piano box - - anything that BELONGS to the Weichman clan would merit the use of an apostrophe, but there is no specified object for which the Weichman family can claim ownership. Identifying the family as multiple people with the name Weichman makes pluralizing the name just fine. Just as you don’t want to say “add bean’s to the soup” in a recipe (it’s just BEANS); it is good and right to say “to: the Weichmans.” Any noun plus “s” makes it plural unless it’s one of those incorporated words from another language that we add the native ending to, such as “alumni” or “Bison.” Hence, we have formula 1: PLURALIZATION OF NOUNS = Noun + S (no apostrophe). When DO we want to use it? To show that a thing or things belongs to another thing or things. “The sauce’s flavor is good,” “We went to the Brown’s house,” and “It’s John’s Birthday” are all excellent examples of the apostrophe showing ownership. Who’s house is it? The Brown’s. Do we send mail to the Brown’s? No, unless you are literally sending it to the brown’s house, not the family of Brown(s). We now have formula 2: Ownership= NOUN + ‘ + S Are there exceptions? Absolutely. We don’t say bisons, or alumnis because those are incorporated words. We reference the rules of another language in examples like this. Also, there are complications when our English words end in S, or when a plural thing collectively has ownership. Example: “Jesus shed blood.” Who’s blood did he shed? He shed Jesuses blood? Jesus’s blood? Similarly; “We had soup from the Albertsons Deli.” Did you like Albertson’s’s soup? Did Albertson’s have good soup? I think I’ll have soup From Albertsons.’ " One starts to see why so many get it wrong. The first example involving Jesus has two acceptable answers. You’ll have to pick which one makes more sense to you: both Jesus’s and Jesus’ are correct in English Grammar. Personally, I’ve only seen “Jusus’…” but I read that both have been found in grammar books. To solve the Albertsons problem, I would just remember that the actual name of the grocery store is spelled without an apostrophe. Saying Albertsons’ soup is good would probably be acceptable grammatically, but it’s also possible to get around the saxon genitive by just saying “Soup from Albertsons is good.” PART II QUESTION: What if apostrophes have been contraction indicators all along, even when used to show ownership? The most interesting part of the history of apostrophes is the theory that originally, apostrophes showed ownership because they were thought to be contractions. There is a fascinating article below that explains how a group of English Grammarians decided that early English speakers once expressed ownership through contracting pronouns. Example: “Who’s hat is this? It is John his hat.” We do not have many records of that format actually being used, but there are enough to give validity to the idea that all apostrophes are actually based on contractions. The idea that it indicates ownership without referencing a pronoun is a little more hard to believe. In ancient English, “John’s hat” would be expressed as “Johns hat.” Simple, right? This group of priggish grammarists must have been asking where the “s” at the end of “John’s” comes from. Their answer, that it is literally “John-his” shortened to "Johns" actually merits the use of an apostrophe. Whether that is the true origin of the genitive “s” or a false one, it is one way to keep the apostrophe rules straight. Read more HERE
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