ESL General English Grammar Questions

Re: Help with apostrophe's

Feebs11 — Tue, 20 May 2008 00:19:31 GMT

There is a possessive, so "Mr and Mrs Waters' luncheon"

Re: Help with apostrophe's

Anonymous — Mon, 19 May 2008 23:58:03 GMT

Which sentence is correct Mr. and Mrs. Waters' luncheon will be on 30 May 08 Mr. and Mrs. Waters luncheon will be on 30 May 08

Re: Help with apostrophe's

nona the brit — Mon, 19 May 2008 06:27:15 GMT

Rule One: Don't ever use apostrophes when you are making a plural. Apostrophe's in your title is incorrect.

Rule Two: Use apostrophes when you are making a possessive. Sometimes it goes before the s and sometimes after the s. You need to learn the rule and if you search this site you'll find plenty of help.

Rule Three: Use apostophes in contractions, such as in the word 'you'll' in my sentence above. You put the apostrophe in the place of the missing letters.

Re: Help with apostrophe's

Anonymous — Mon, 19 May 2008 01:19:56 GMT

An apostrophe as you're using it indicates possession. If you were to use "dog's" with an apostrophe "s", you would be saying that a dog was in possession of something. For example, "the dog's bowl." In this case, the dog owns the bowl or possesses the bowl. Without the apostrophe, it becomes a plural or more than one dog. For example, if you said "who let the dogs out?" you would be asking about more than one dog.

If you wanted to show possession by more than one dog (a group of dogs), you would put the apostrophe after the "s" since you'd still have to show a plural. For example, "the dogs' bowls" would indicate that more than one dog possesses a bowl.

If the word you are trying to use for possession ends with an "s" (for example, Mr. Jones), you would technically have to put an apostrophe after the "s" in Jones, then add another "s" after that. For example, "Mr. Jones's bowl." But really it's fine to just write this without the final "s".

Re: Help with apostrophe's

Feebs11 — Sun, 18 May 2008 22:50:01 GMT

See here: http://owl.english.purdue.edu/handouts/grammar/g_apost.html

Help with apostrophe's

Anonymous — Sun, 18 May 2008 15:37:22 GMT

Hi,

Can someone explain to me when to use apostrophes or when not. For example dogs or dog's or phones or phone's etc or even phones'. I have a test coming up and I really need some help with this, if someone could kindly expain it to me.

thanks