How to use apostrophes, part I: Plurals
I am, frankly, embarrassed that so many technical bloggers cannot use apostrophes correctly. Developers can put semicolons in the right place in their code (maybe it’s just because the compiler tells them they got it wrong), but they can’t get the much more simple rules of English right. You should be ashamed of yourselves.
Anyway, here’s part I in an ongoing rant-series, which deals with plurals.
First off, you never, ever put an apostrophe before the ’s’ in a word which is a plural. It’s that simple. Some examples:
| Example | Comments |
|---|---|
| Guy’s tent peg is bent | indicates a single person, Guy, who owns a single bent tent peg |
| The guys’ tent pegs are broken | indicates that there are several blokes who jointly own some tent pegs that are bent. |
| There are guys and girls | there are several men and several girls. The sentence doesn’t say anything about what they own. |
I knew a bloke who would start every single email with the word Guy’s.
There was no one at our company called Guy.
So, every time you use an apostrophe, consider whether the word is plural. If so, put the apostrophe after the ‘S’.
Next time: abbreviation.
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4 Responses to “How to use apostrophes, part I: Plurals”
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After abbreviation perhaps you might address the use of your as opposed to you’re?
Thank’s for this’ - its realy usefull
Hi Higgis, nitpicker here - you’ve missed out your ‘are’ in the second example, rendering it nonsensical, unless it’s meant to indicate that a communally owned single tent peg is broken, in which case there’s a missing apostrophe to indicate the ‘is’ (as in: The guys’ tent peg’s broken).
I get very little opportunity for expostulating or expressing pedantry now that I don’t hang around with you anymore. I miss it.
I know you know your are’s from your arse.
Suitably chastened,(or chazzned?) I have updated point two. Serves me right for being a smug pedant I suppose. Still, part II is coming soon…