Comments

• bruce January 12, 2005 12:04 PM

  Another common mistake people use is when you have a plural possessive statement. Like, All of the cats' tails are out of the bag.
  
  (Great cartoon, btw)

• bruce January 13, 2005 8:43 AM

  Amen. It's almost as bad as when someone looses their mind. :)
  

• bruce January 16, 2005 9:39 PM

  Picking an it
  Its lot's to be abused: apostrophe.
  It's Lot's to be abused: no apostasy.
  Lots of its are it's: catastrophe!

• bruce January 18, 2005 5:39 PM

  Did you know that there is an Apostrophe Protection Society? Here is there link: http://www.apostrophe.fsnet.co.uk/
  
  You can view pictures of real-life apostrophe abuse on this site!
  
  I also recommend "Eats Shoots and Leaves" by Lynne Truss. It's a very humourous yet educational look at punctuation.
  
  I was a high school English teacher in the past. And I think you will find this helpful:
  
  1. Use the apostrophe to show possession. For example, "Bruce's Blog"
  
  2. Use the apostrophe to show omission. That's right. The apostrophe's presence can also tell us something was removed. As in the contraction "didn't". The 'o' in 'not' was removed. So the apostrophe is there in its place. Note that the possessive 'its' that I just used has no apostrophe: like other possessive pronouns 'his' and 'hers'.
  
  

• bruce January 27, 2005 4:52 PM

  Ju'st becau'se there i's an 's in a word doe'sn't mean that it ha's to be preceded by an apo'strophe.

• bruce January 3, 2006 6:10 PM

  ye's it doe's

• bruce January 29, 2006 4:43 PM

  question: lost on one - is it
  communications' needs
  communication's needs
  communication needs

• bruce February 25, 2006 1:16 PM

  I agree. I'm not a native English speaker, but I have noticed that a lot of native speakers, especially Americans (no offence) are very bad at spelling and grammar. I can't believe how many mistakes they make in their native language, and the misuse of apostrophes is the worst one.

• bruce May 10, 2006 3:33 AM

  If the owner of a pharmacy is Kiely is it Kiely's Pharmacy
  
  Help!

• bruce July 21, 2006 12:35 AM

  Farts (not fart's) are always funny, no matter what.

• Clare Cockroft June 14, 2007 7:27 AM

  Why is it wrong to use an apostrophe after 'cats'' in the first example above?

  'All of the cats' tails are out of the bag.'

  There is more than one cat and the apostrophe indicates possession, so what's wrong please?

• Coozins August 12, 2007 9:04 AM

  One thing that also annoys me is when people put apostrophes after letter or numbers, such as "a's" and "3's". Same goes for years.

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