What’s the us(ag)e?
Possession might be 9/10 of the law, but does the law have anything to do with language? Of course it does. There is no law without language, and there is no language without law (laws, rules, structure). Whether possession is really 9/10 of the law depends on who is in possession. But possession in language is a special case in that possession is not determined by who is more wealthy and powerful but is the same for all, and it is indicated with one of those very special non-letters and non-numbers we call punctuation marks. And we don’t need a judge to show us which mark we use. We all know it.
We mark possession with an apostrophe. This is the apostrophe’s mark: ’. The apostrophe looks like a comma that is levitating above the language line, kind of floating above the other punctuation marks. But that’s not really the problem with the apostrophe. The 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. (Which translates as: Let us 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” [and “let us” sounds a lot like “lettuce,” though that accident of English pronunciation probably has no significance at all] ).
But what is so deceptive about all of this? The deceptive part comes, again, from the simple fact that we have no apostrophes in speech (nor do we speak any other punctuation marks), but we need them in writing. But, here is the important part; the need is not very strong. And because we don’t ABSOLUTELY need apostrophes to indicate possession, we often don’t use them, resulting in a mistake in writing.
Why do we not absolutely need the apostrophe? Because in almost every instance, a reader can easily figure out from the context of the sentence when possession is indicated.
Here is an example. We are writing a story about girls playing tennis. We write a sentence such as this: The girls tennis rackets were left in the car.
What does this sentence likely mean? It means that more than one girl left their tennis rackets in the car.
Could only one girl have left more than one tennis racket in the car? Yes. But given the context, that we know that there are several girls traveling in the car and that more than one racket was left, we are almost certain that it was more than one girl leaving more than one racket. And the more of the story that we know, the more certain we are. But without the context, we need that apostrophe.
Using the apostrophe we can be certain that our meaning is clear. There are two options. More than one girl left tennis rackets in the car. If so, we write the sentence like this: The girls’ tennis rackets were left in the car.
If the tennis rackets belonged to just one girl, then we write the sentence like this:
The girl’s tennis rackets were left in the car.
We don’t need the context of the story to know exactly what is the case, and that is a good reason for using the apostrophe.
But still, you might ask, where is the deception? The real deception comes from confusion, not from a purposeful attempt to deceive. The confusion is when, as above, plurals are mixed with possession. As above, one girl: girl’s. More than one girl: girls’.
Isn’t this too simple to cause confusion? Perhaps. Perhaps it is deceptively simple. Look at what happens to the Jones family. Not only do they have to worry about people keeping up with them, but they also have to worry about apostrophes and plurals.
John Jones owns a car. Jane Jones owns her own car. The Joneses own two cars. John Jones’* car is in the shop. Jane Jones’ car has a flat tire. The Joneses’ cars are not available. Therefore, they call the Smiths.
John Smith owns a car. Jane Smith owns her own car. The Smiths own two cars. John Smith’s car is in the shop. Jane Smith’s car has a flat tire. The Smiths’ cars are not available. Therefore, the Joneses call a taxi.
(And out of frustration with plurals and apostrophes they change their name to Jone. But then they find out that they hate being called John Jone and Jane Jone. And they had named their daughter Joan, and now her name is Joan Jone. Her daughter runs away from home because of the humiliation she now has about her new name. Joan blames John and divorces him and marries John Smith. Jane Smith then marries John Jone but, wisely, keeps her own name.)
Writing with apostrophes and plurals is not at all deceptive if the what that is possessed is possessed by someone whose name does not end with an “s.” If you have problems with possession, don’t call for an exorcist, call for a grammarian.
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* Or Jones’s, this one being preferred by those who like exactitude, the other by those who prefer economy.
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