Apostrophes do not appear in plurals. Apostrophes do not appear in archaic possessives. Apostrophes are not toys, and should not be given to children under the age of six, or, evidently, many people who are in the business of making signs.
"There," "their," and "they're" all mean different things. "There" looks like "here," so you know it refers to place. "Their" looks like nothing on earth, so it's pretty clear that it doesn't mean "they are." "They're" looks like "they are," except without the "a." This is how we form contractions. It's not difficult.
"His" and "hers" have no apostrophes. "Its," when a possessive, has no apostrophe. These things are always true. You must expend the effort to learn this rule exactly once.
If a family's surname is Williams, the plural is not "Williams'." It is "Williamses." That may look goofy, but I can't help that. At no point is it correct in this case to write "William's." Have you ever found a word that admits the random insertion of apostrophes?
The only situation in which apostrophes are a little bit sketchy is in possessives of names ending in "s." The question then becomes whether to write "Thomas'" or "Thomas's." The answer is, essentially, "yes." I prefer the former, as do most pedants, but the latter, for consistency's sake, is permissible. So, really, there's no excuse. Just so long as you don't write "Thoma's" or "Thomases," you're good. And both of those are patently ludicrous.
Which means that this whole thing is just not that hard, and if you screw it up you are either lazy or inconsiderate, and it is up to you to decide which is worse.
5 comments:
You have, for the first time in a VERY long time, finally hit upon a topic that drives you as ballistic as it does me. Can't we come up with some kind of compulsory proper-use system punishable by death?
some people don't mind unconventional apostrophes.
Bagdis points out that this page disagrees with your statement on possessives of names ending in "s." I agree with you, though.
The one and only exception to the otherwise ironclad "apostrophes are never used to pluralize" rule: pluralizing single letters. Just to make sure you dot your i's and cross your t's.
And I vote for "Thomas's". Otherwise the unidentified stuff belongs to several people who are all named Thoma.
The good Dr. Strunk, in rule #1, also rejects "Thomas'." Seriously, who are these pedants you have in mind?
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