APOSTROPHES

Apostrophes in English are used for possession and contraction.
They are not used to form plurals.

POSSESSION :

Apostrophes are used to indicate possession in nouns (but not in pronouns: hers, ours, theirs....).

• The girl's bicycle.
• The bicycle is hers (not her's).

To show possession, 's is added to a singular noun (even if the noun ends in 's').

• John's car.
• James's guitar.

To show possession in a plural noun, the apostrophe is added after the plural s.

• My parents' house is near the coast.
• Visitors are not allowed into the students' rooms.
• Witches' hats are pointed.

If the word is plural but does not end in s, simply add an ‘s for possession.

• The children’s playground is beside the school.

CONTRACTION :

Apostrophes are used to indicate missing letters in contractions.
For example:

• He's is a contracted form of he is.
• It's is a contracted form of it is.
• Its is a possessive pronoun like 'my', 'his', 'her', etc.
• The dog was chewing its toy.
  It's (it is) its toy so that's (that is) ok.
• Who's is a contracted form of who is.
  • Who's (who is) the owner of the red car?
  • Whose car was damaged during the storm?

PLURALS :

Apostrophes are sometimes mistakenly used in plurals.
Remember: if there is no possession or contraction, there is no apostrophe.
The plural of most English nouns is formed by adding s or es.

• One fork, two forks (not two fork's).
• One inch, two inches.
• One spoonful of cream, two spoonfuls of cream (not two spoonful's).

Exception: For the sake of clarity, an apostrophe can be used to show the plural of single letters.

• Remember to dot your i's and cross your t's.
• Mind your p’s and q’s!

FAMILY NAMES :

There is no apostrophe in the plural of family names (to refer to the whole family).
An apostrophe is used only to indicate possession.

• The Windsors are coming for dinner.
• The blue car belongs to the Windsors. It's (it is) the Windsors' car.

NUMBERS and DATES :

To make a number plural we simply add an s. We do not add an apostrophe.

• The airline added three 747s to their fleet.
• The witness was a man in his 40s.
• The Beatles became famous in the 1960s.

If the year is contracted, an apostrophe indicates the missing numbers.

• Jazz became very popular in the '30s.

If some occurrence belongs to a specific year, an apostrophe is added:

• 2019 was our best year.
• 2019’s results were better than those of the previous years.