Ownership with certain proper nouns can be tricky. “Sunday’s football game” is not technically correct (because Sunday is incapable of ownership) but it’s perfectly acceptable to say and write. “A hard day’s work” is likewise perfectly correct, even though the day is incapable of ownership.
Note the difference in usage: Acceptable: Jones’ house; Francis’ window; Enders’ family. Preferred: Jones’s house; Francis’s window; Enders’s family. Whichever style you prefer using, be consistent with it. It doesn’t really matter which policy you adopt, as long as you adopt it consistently.
Note the difference in usage: Acceptable: Jones’ house; Francis’ window; Enders’ family. Preferred: Jones’s house; Francis’s window; Enders’s family. Whichever style you prefer using, be consistent with it. It doesn’t really matter which policy you adopt, as long as you adopt it consistently.
The reason for this is to avoid confusion between “its” used for possession and “it’s” used as a contraction of “it is. " If you’re not sure whether to use an apostrophe or not, try saying the sentence with “it is” or “it has. " If it doesn’t make sense (the way that “it is foreign policy” cannot substitute for “China’s foreign policy”), then drop the apostrophe.
If the family’s last name ends in “s,” make it plural before adding an apostrophe. For instance, if you wanted to discuss the Williams family, they would become “the Williamses” in a plural sense. If you wanted to reference their dog, you’d say “the Williamses’ dog. " If the last name seems awkward to say that way, sidestep the issue by saying “the Williams family” and “the Williams family’s dog. " If you’re listing who owns an object, know where to put the apostrophe. For instance, if both John and Mary own a cat, you would write “John and Mary’s cat” — not “John’s and Mary’s cat. " “John and Mary” is a cohesive noun phrase, and therefore only needs one apostrophe.
An occasional exception to this use is in the case of making a single letter plural. Therefore, Why are there so many i’s in the word “indivisibility”? is correct, depending on who you ask. [7] X Research source This is simply for clarity reasons, so the reader does not mistake it for the word “is. " However, in modern usage, the preference is to avoid inserting an apostrophe and instead surround the single letter in quotation marks before pluralizing it: Why are there so many “i"s in the word “indivisibility”? Avoid the problem altogether with small numbers by spelling out the word: “ones” instead of “1’s,” “fours” instead of “4’s” or “nines” instead of “9’s. " Only spell out words of numerals that are ten or lower.
The only time an apostrophe should be used in a year is if it’s standing in for omitted numbers. For instance, if you wanted to shorten the year 2005, you could write ‘05. In this case, the apostrophe is essentially acting like it does in a contraction and serving as shorthand.
