Apostrophes, although seemingly confusing, have only two
main uses:
1.
To take the place of omitted letters or numbers (i.e., form
contractions).
Consider the following examples:
Example 1: they're, you've, it's,
I'm, she'd, he'll, don't
Example 2: winter of '98, back in
'73
In example 1, apostrophes are used
in contractions to show the omission of letters.
In example 2, apostrophes are used
in years to show the omission of numbers.
2.
To form possessive nouns.
Consider the following examples:
Jennifer's, Connor's, phone's,
people's, televisions'
In these examples, apostrophes are
used to make the nouns possessive. Remember, apostrophes are not used
to make nouns or pronouns plural: they are used to make nouns possessive.
You cannot, however, use apostrophes to make pronouns
possessive. Possessive pronouns never use apostrophes.
For example:
That goat is your’s.
Many people get confused over how to make the pronoun “your”
possessive. They might simply add ‘s. This is incorrect. Never use an
apostrophe with “your”. The personal pronoun “your” is not possessive. The
possessive form of “your” is “yours”.
Here is the corrected version of the above example:
That goat is yours.
This rule also holds for all the other personal pronouns. For
example:
his, their, her, hers, its.
Many people get confused over when to use its vs. it's. Refer
to the personal pronouns section for the usage
explanation for “its” vs. “it’s”.
Rules for
using apostrophes for multiple possessive nouns:
A.
When two nouns own the same thing, use the possessive form only on the
last noun.
For example:
Tom and Jerry’s new house
was amazing.
Here, Tom and Jerry both own the house, so
the possessive form is only used on the last noun, “Jerry”.
B.
When multiple nouns own multiple items separately, use the possessive
form with all the nouns involved.
For example:
Tom’s and Jerry’s houses
were both spacious.
Here, Tom and Jerry both own separate houses, so the
possessive form is used with both the nouns.
Refer to the compound nouns section in the next
grade grammar concepts for information on forming possessives of compound
nouns.
Apostrophes also have another minor use. They are also used
in plurals of letters to make the writing clearer.
For example:
dot your i's, cross your t's
In the above
examples, apostrophes are used to make the writing easier to read.