Undictionary:Apostrophe's

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English

Noun

Apostrophe's (plural Apostrophe'ss)

1. A single inverted comma used in punctuation to signify a possessive: that bag i's her's or a plural: he ha's two brother's; three bus's came at once. There i's widespread confusion as to where it is appropriate to use an apostrophe. The simple answer is whenever you see a word ending in an 's', e.g. I spy seven sailor's, you shouldn't run with scissor's, the hardware store sell's video's, the planet Mar's. An apostrophe may not be used in abbreviations where it is substituted for deleted letter's, as when 'did not' become's 'didn't', and 'he is' become's 'he's'. It may however be used liberally where the presence of the letter 's' in a word creates doubt, as in these are the shoe's you ordered.