User:IraDinsmor1261

While interviewing a prospective client I noticed he was writing notes on a writing tablet and interestingly enough he asked if one of his sentences was grammatically correct. I looked at the sentences and said, "I'm sorry sir, but the apostrophe is in the wrong place in this word." He was curious as to why, so I explained some of the main uses of the apostrophe. After that interview, I decided to share that information with you as well.

The apostrophe is a punctuation mark that looks like a tiny water droplet ['] and placed between, or after, letters to show possession, omission, plural form, and/or contractions.

Apostrophes are used to show possession: Possession means to show ownership of something or someone. It also means to have or to own something as in 'belonging to...' Example: Angelica's phone was found in the library. Notice the apostrophe between the letters 'a' and 's' in the name Angelica? Who does the phone belong to? The apostrophe shows that the phone belongs to Angelica.

Apostrophes are used when letters are omitted: When letters are omitted it means they are left out. So instead of spelling out the full word, it is shortened and the apostrophe is used in place of the letter or letters missing. Examples of letters omitted: Li'l to mean Little; O'r to mean Over'; Ol' to mean Old.

Apostrophes are used to express the plural form of numbers: Plural means more than one, so in this sense the use of the apostrophe would indicate more than one number, more than one symbol, or more than one letter. Examples of plural form: The five girls' hats had a flower pattern. Seven of the boys' pants got wet when they went fishing. Notice the plural form of girls' and boys'.

Apostrophes are used to make contractions: Contractions are two words turned into one word, the apostrophe would then show where the letters would normally be. Examples of contractions: "do not" is written as "don't"; "will not" is written as "won't"; "have not" is written as "haven't". Notice that the apostrophe is used to connect two words and make one word.

Apostrophes are also used to express plural numbers: Examples: Your 6's and 8's were missing on your answer sheet. Your 20's looked like scribbles. Remember to always use an apostrophe after a zero as in 1920's, not 1920s.

In summary, the apostrophe is a punctuation mark that looks like a tiny water droplet ['] and is placed between, or after, letters to show possession, omission, plural, or contractions.

As always, there is so much more to learn in the use of the English Language, for now I hope you've found this information as useful as my, now new client did. 暗記 英単語