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Apostrophes

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Apostrophes

Do these little punctuation marks catch you out? ’Do you know why we need apostrophes?

When should they be used?

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An apostrophe can be used to show the place of a missing letter or letters in a word.

do notDon’t

I amI’mThe missing letter is ‘a’

The missing letter is ‘o’

Omission

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An apostrophe can also be used to show that one thing belongs to something or someone else. This is known as the apostrophe of possession.

If we start with a singular noun

the dog

then we we just add ‘s

the dog’s tail

Possession

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If the noun we start with is plural

the dogs

then we just add an apostrophe after the s

the dogs’ tails

Some plurals do not end in s, and so we add ‘s

the men’s coats

Possession

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Proper nouns that end in ‘s’ can use either apostrophe+s or just an apostrophe.

James’ new shoes or James’s new shoesMr Davies’ cat or Mr Davies’s cat

These possessive pronouns do not use apostrophes:

yours his hers its ours theirs

NOTE: The bird folded its wing.

It’s a long way to go. short for ‘it is’

possessive pronoun

Possession

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