Hi Bert,
My 9th grade class adored me, of course, since I was just another 9th grade student serving the 9th year of a 12 year sentence with no time off for good behavior.
My college students, on the other hand, did not suffer me gladly, since I gave them spelling tests in hopes of getting them to understand that the written word distinguishes between two, too, and to, as well as it's and its and there, they're, and their.
Such pedantry was resented least by the scholar athletes, who appreciated my point that anyone trying out for the football team would be expected to run, jump, and do a few push-ups before being allowed to attack someone on the gridiron.
Our friend the apostrophe is, after all, quite simple, with only two jobs.
First, an apostrophe shows missin' letters--they are becomes they're, it is, becomes it's, and so on.
Second, an apostrophe shows possession with an -s- unless it's a pronoun.
Carl's post and Bert's reply are easy, but words that already end in -s- are trickier--Moses's tabletscan also be Moses' tablets.
Pronouns, do not use apostrophes to show possession. When in doubt think of my dog, her comb, our house--they use no apostrophe, and neither do its title, his father, or their cattle.
If you make a mistake, remember that no one can hear the difference if you read what you wrote out loud.
It is in fact the pedant who fails to read things correctly. I blush to admit that I read "oncet" as one-set for years because that's how it looked to me on the page. My ignorance was eventually shattered when I read a book that tried to spell out the colloquilalism as "wunst"--that's how it's pronounced in casual speech in the South. "I wunst thought that I knew how to say 'oncet.' but I was dead wrong,"
Don't get me started on how Old English had singular, dual, and plural forms for nouns because that's how they saw the world.
Cheers,
Carl Fogel
