The Queen’s English – Apostrophes Can Be Pesky Too!

William Penn first set foot in Philadelphia at the foot of Walnut Street on the Delaware River. It became Penn’s Landing; however the dozens of directional signs in the area point to “Penns Landing” – – the apostrophe has been jettisoned! One can only wonder whether it was done intentionally or, more likely, because the sign-maker never gave it a thought.

One of the obvious failures in the teaching of English grammar involves the apostrophe, and as a result vast numbers of people are blithely unaware of its proper usage; they include or exclude it at will, never being quite confident. As is so often the case the rules are simple, and, properly used, the apostrophe serves a very important purpose.

There are three circumstances where it should be employed:
    to indicate that a noun is possessive: “It is John’s hat”;
    to indicate a verb-phrase contraction: “Aren’t you joining us?”; and
    to denote a deletion of letters or numbers in a word: “burbs” (for suburbs) or “68′” (for 1968). (Note: An apostrophe should not be used where a word is abbreviated properly, such as “Penna.”)
We’ll be talking more about each of these uses of the apostrophe. In the meantime think a bit before using or omitting it.

– Ken Butera