Following on from last week’s article about “your and “you’re”, I now want to look some more at the apostrophe, and in particular at whether an apostrophe should come before or after the “s” (or whether it shouldn’t be there at all).
An apostrophe is used in this case to show that someone or something possesses something, and where the apostrophe comes depends on how many people or things are doing the possessing. Here are some examples:
“my daughter’s room” – another way of saying this would be “the room belonging to my daughter” – and as there is only one daughter being referred to here the apostrophe comes before the “s”.
“my sons’ computers” – this means the computers belonging to several, or at least two, of my sons (the apostrophe comes after the “s”, showing that more than one son is being talked about here). Another way of saying this would be “the computers of my sons” (not that anyone ever would say anything so stilted, of course!).
In other words, the apostrophe comes immediately after the person or persons being referred to: after “daughter” – before the “s” – if there’s only one of them; after “sons” – after the “s” – if there are two or more.
Where confusion sometimes crops up in an online context is when someone’s trying to persuade you to join an affiliate program by boasting that you’ll have access to a special “member’s site” where members can find information which is not available to non-members.
Putting the apostrophe before the ‘s’ suggests that so far they have only one member, which may not have been quite what they meant to say… On the other hand, if they meant you would have your own “member’s site” for your personal use, then they got the apostrophe right. It depends whether they’re talking about you, the single member, or the whole group of members (plural).
People frequently make the mistake of adding an apostrophe to a simple plural, when all that’s needed is “s” on its own. You see this often outside shops or restaurants, for instance – “tomato’s”, “pizza’s”, “cold drink’s” and so on – when it should just be “tomatoes”, “pizzas” or “cold drinks”. The test is to see whether the words “of” or “belonging to” would be appropriate here.
Obviously nothing is belonging to the tomatoes, and we aren’t talking about something which is “of the pizza”, so no apostrophe is needed. In an online context, you could make things easier for yourself by heading a webpage for members with the words “Members only”. Then there’s no need for an apostrophe, whereas if you were to head it “Members’ page” – i.e.. ‘page belonging to the members’ – you would have to put one in.
If you would like me to check your ad copy, sales letter, report or even e-book for rogue apostrophes, e-mail me at webmaster@virginiarounding.com.
Virginia Rounding is a published writer whose website of
Internet Resources for Writers looks at additional ways for
writers to earn money, in the hope of making it possible
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