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Punctuation Marks in English Langauge : the APOSTROPHE mark
The Apostrophe should come under the comma rather
than under the quotation marks or double comma. The word is Greek and signifies
a turning away from. The letter elided or turned away is generally an
e.
In poetry and familiar dialogue the apostrophe marks the
elision of a syllable, as "I've for I have"; "Thou'rt for thou art"; "you'll
for you will," etc. Sometimes it is necessary to abbreviate a word by leaving
out several letters. In such case the apostrophe takes the place of the omitted
letters as "cont'd for continued."
The apostrophe is used to denote the
elision of the century in dates, where the century is understood or to save the
repetition of a series of figures, as "The Spirit of '76"; "I served in the
army during the years 1895, '96, '97, '98 and '99." The principal use of the
apostrophe is to denote the possessive case. All nouns in the singular number
whether proper names or not, and all nouns in the plural ending with any other
letter than s, form the possessive by the addition of the apostrophe and
the letter s. The only exceptions to this rule are, that, by poetical
license the additional s may be elided in poetry for sake of the metre,
and in the scriptural phrases "For goodness' sake." "For conscience' sake,"
"For Jesus' sake," etc.
Custom has done away with the s and
these phrases are now idioms of the language. All plural nouns ending in
s form the possessive by the addition of the apostrophe only as boys',
horses'. The possessive case of the personal pronouns never take the
apostrophe, as ours, yours, hers, theirs. |
