A guide to using the apostrophe (and when to leave the poor fella alone)

I have decided that the apostrophe is male. It's entirely random and based on nothing even remotely scientific. Feel free to change its gender at will; if you feel more comfortable thinking of our curly floating friend in more feminine terms then fill your boots.

Gender issues aside, what really matters is when to use an apsostrophe and when to resist the urge to throw one in just for the hell of it.

When to use an apostrophe

The grammatical rules around apostrophe use are really rather simple. Once you've read them you'll have absolutely no excuse for throwing them into your text with gay abandon and leaving them out when the mood takes.

"Rules is rules", as they say (whoever they are).

Hmmm, there's something missing...

An apostrohpe should be used in place of missing letters in a word or where two words are merged together. For example:

  • You are becomes you're
  • Cannot becomes can't
  • You will becomes you'll
  • It is becomes it's

    • Oooh, you're so possessive!

    The second reason you may need to use an apostrophe is to denote possession. So, if something belongs to someone, it's time to bring out our curly friend. For example:

  • The dentist's teeth
  • Peter's apple
  • The bee's knees
  • The dog's [ahem] danglies

    • Eek! Double trouble...

    When using an apostrophe to show that something belongs to someone (or something), you need to be aware of the plural possessive rule. This simply means that if there are two or more of something, the apostrophe goes after the 's'.

    So, taking one of the examples above (and leaving aside the question of whether bees actually have knees):

  • The lone bee's knees becomes the three bees' knees

    • And that's all you need to remember about when to use an apostrophe. I told you the rules were simple!