What’s the us(ag)e?
I’ve given examples of apostrophes in the possessives and the plurals lessons, but those examples don’t illustrate the sometimes deceptive nature of apostrophes.
Here is what I wrote in the apostrophe lesson about possession:
One problem with this mark is that it is has other uses, the most common other one being to indicate that a letter is missing, as in this sentence:
Let’s get going.
The apostrophe is substituted for the missing “u” in “us.” (And the missing space between the “let” and the “us.” It’s this economy, saving space, that is one big reason the apostrophe was used. It “saves” space and time, since it takes less time to say and read “let’s” than it does “let us.”)
Apostrophe’s are, I think, a sign of modernity, with the emphasis on speed. The space and time saving feature of the apostrophe is like changing the spelling of “through” to “thru, as in the “Drive Thru.” Ugh! What’s wrong with using the “ough” of “through”? I really like those curved letters. As the poet Ezra Pound said, “In slowness is beauty.” But speed, not beauty, is the sign of these times. There is no deception with this use of apostrophes to indicate speed, but there is some complication and some complaint (from me).
What about this example?
Who’s that? and Whose hat?
It’s not difficult to confuse “who’s” with “whose,” but we know that “who’s” almost always means “who is” so there is not really any deception here. [If you are curious about the “almost,” the other possible meaning of “who’s” is “who has” as in “Who’s been here?”]
Now, this example is a bit deceptive since we can easily get confused by words that sound the same but have different meanings.
Is there any more deception with apostrophes?
Well, similar to above is the infamous “its” and “it’s” confusion.
This confusion must involve deception; otherwise, why is it so hard for so many writers to distinguish between the two? From looking at hundreds and hundreds of webpages, I estimate that the “its – it’s” mistake appears from 10 to 30 % of the time. And this confusion is curious since making such a distinction does not involve intelligence. After being shown the difference, any ten year old could tell us that “it’s” only means “it is” (except for the few cases when it means “it has” [“So long. It’s been good to know you.”] ).
So here it is: “it’s” means “it is.” And “its” is similar to “his” and “hers.” We don’t write such things as this:
The ball belongs to Sally. It is her’s.
Or,
The ball belongs to Bill. It is hi’s.
No we don’t. So why do we write sentences like the following?
That is the dog’s ball. I said, “It is it’s ball!”
So if the dog has lost its ball, to say that it has lost it’s ball means that we are saying that the dog has lost it is ball. And that is ridiculous. None of us would say such a thing. But many of us write such a thing.
How do we keep from making this most common and deceptive mistake? Every time you write “it’s” substitute “it is” (except for the “has” example). If the sentence doesn’t make sense, use “its.”
And every time you do that, you know that you have conquered apostrophe deception. You feel good about yourself. Yes. You can say, “I feel good. Da da da da da.” Just like James Brown.
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