apostro-phed up

as promised, the long-awaited apostrophe rant...

more than any other grammatical mistake, the misplaced and misused apostrophe gets me all fired up. maybe because it's the most common, or maybe because when misused in public, it's the most ridiculous appearing. the two main uses for an apostrophe ( contraction and designation of possession) are equally abused, but because abused contractions (like "your welcome") are usually just homophone mistakes, i'll limit my rant to the possessive apostrophe.

the rules really are quite simple: if you want to show one thing belongs to another, put two nouns next to each other, then give the first noun an apostrophe and an "s", and the second noun now belongs to it. (any two nouns will do- it might not always make sense, but it will be grammatically correct). if there's no belonging involved, there's no apostrophe involved. that's it.

acceptable: "the computer's keyboard", "the water's edge", "a winter's night"
unacceptable (actual phrases from signage in THIS VERY COMMUNITY!): "hour's of operation", "hot dog's and hamburger's", "shirt's- $1.29"

special apostrophe occasions:

• plural possessives- if you want your first noun to be plural, the apostrophe goes after the "s" ("the cars' headlights", "their parents' joy").
• "its"- "it's" is a contraction for "it is" or "it has", and is not a possessive form. "its" is the possessive form of "it", used similar to "his" or "her". there is no such word as " its' ".

whew. now that's off my chest. next up, more top 5's.