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Show The little apostrophes shows up in the wrong places'-Dont they? W A il isdom & Wisecracks By SHERRI EINFELDT 4 Remember, in the contraction "it's," the apostrophe is standing in for the missing letter "i," which makes the apostrophe feel important. impor-tant. Oh, did I mention that nasty word, "contractions? The apostrophe is a very welcome guest in contractions (where two words are joined to become one). The apostrophe merely takes the place of the displaced letter, 'don't" you see? It can even take the place of one or more letters in slang expressions, (that'll keep ya' smilin'). Now, you say, it can't get any more complicated than that Wrong O. When we think we've finally mastered this plural and possessive stuff, along comes the problem of "plural possessives.'' EEEEEEKKK!!! Relax, there's a neat way to remember how to do these as well: you must be plural before you can possess anything. In other words, you form the plural first, then add the apostrophe showing possession, as in the Hamiltons' car, or the girls' purses. Now for the, dare I say it?.. exception to this rule?! OK, here goes. If the noun is already a plural word (i.e. men, children), then the apostrophe is placed before the "s," as is done with singular words, (for example, the men's race). So we now have (ready for this?) The Crandalls, Mike Crandall's bike, The Crandalls' property. Whew ww ! With that minute obstacle out of our way, we can get to more important frustrations, like paper cuts, decimal points, cavities, lost needles, hangnails... Have you ever noticed that sometimes the little things in life have to make an extra effort to get our attention? Termites are very small bothers, as are slivers, and tire punctures, microscopic bacteria and even the punctuation nemesis: the apostrophe. It can cause us grief by snowing up in the wrong place at the wrong time. Take, for instance, plural surnames. sur-names. Why is it that so many American families feel the need to include an apostrophe when declaring declar-ing their names on mailboxes, RVs (see, no apostrophe there either), or on name placards on homes? Do they simply feel sorry for the little fellow, or are they unsure about how to declare, "This camper belongs to all of the Johnsons"? The Johnson's indicates that one of the Johnson family members owns something, rather than indicating that all the Johnsons live at that house. Thus, "The Johnsons," is the correct way of spelling the surname in plural. So maybe our first task is to decide what it is we really want to say. And what about possessives? Of course, we all know an apostrophe is always used to show possession, as in Mike's book, the child's toy. There's never an exception to this rule, right? (So, "Murphy's" making his rounds again.) Well, "it's" the culprit. I mean, "it is" the culprit. It's not its fault that "it" doesn't get an apostrophe when it's showing possession. Simple, eh? |