Apostrophe's Apostrophes

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Category: Megan's Grammar Garden

Written by Megan

Megan’s Grammar Garden:  Apostrophes’ Apostrophes

We see them everywhere, used willy-nilly and carefully, sparingly, often forgotten:  apostrophes.  What do they do?  Why do they matter?  And why does it drive me so crazy when an apostrophe is used incorrectly?

Apostrophes serve two purposes:  to contract words, and to show possession.  Contrary to popular belief (as suggested by social media such as Facebook, and even some products distributed nationally, such as Johnson & Johnson’s baby bubble bath & wash), apostrophes do not show pluralization. 

What about the difference between “Aunts we’re going to the grocery store” and “Aunts were going to the grocery store”?  The difference is one little mark:  an apostrophe.  And what a huge difference it makes.

Possession.  Without getting into too much detail, possession is also known as the genitive case.  The short history lesson is that the apostrophe emerged from this case, which had rules about adding “-s” or “-es” to the end of a word to show who or what owned the object.  Possession shows to whom something belongs:  the dog’s ball, or the queen’s throne.  Plural possession places the apostrophe after the pluralization, so the ball that belongs to multiple dogs becomes the dogs’ ball (which I find odd, as I don’t think of dogs as ones to share their belongings very well).

Despite what Facebook posts might have you believe, apostrophe’s (<---- see that?  I did that on purpose) do not mark pluralization.  What belongs to the apostrophes in that sentence?  Do the apostrophes own anything there?  No, they don’t.  They simply exist as the subject of a secondary clause.  It’s a comment on the use of the punctuation mark.  Nothing more, and nothing less.  Using an apostrophe to mark pluralization just confuses the reader, and leaves the reader looking for ownership when none is needed or warranted.

Watch out for those stray apostrophes in your own writing.  Spend a week specifically looking for stray possessive apostrophes in everything you read, from books and magazines to blogs and Facebook posts and tweets.  You’ll find them everywhere.  Next, get rid of them in your own writing, and say what you mean.

Hold on for part two, when we’ll return to apostrophes and their use in contracted words.

Politics, Religion, Economy

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Category: The Voice of the World

Written by Sam Justice

Fred is at a poker game. It’s dark, dingy, and everyone except him is smoking a cigar and drinking whiskey. Fred is only drinking whiskey. Mostly, Fred knows these people only casually, from his new job. Some of them he doesn’t know at all. Denise, he wants to know better.

This is the first time Fred has attended this poker game, and he isn’t sure what to expect from his fellows. However, everything has gone fine for the first few drinks, until Denise starts complaining about the Emperor’s (may he live forever) new decree raising taxes on gambling.

Big faux pas.

Politics, religion, and the economy. Three things you should never talk about in good company. They are, however, three wonderful things to think about for world building. In a broad overview, these topics, and others similar, set a stage for your characters to act in. Without an understanding of these things—why is there an emperor? Do these taxes affect back room gambling such as this game?—the world that your characters end up in will feel somewhat flat.

Not everything that you decide and create will show up in your show up in your story. Tolkien had entire artificial languages for The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. This will certainly be true to a much lesser extend for most people, but still true. However, the deeper the author’s understanding of the world that he’s writing in, the richer the world will be for the reader.

Take a minute to think about your current work in progress and feel free to jot down a few notes to yourself. What is the governing structure like? Is it like the US, with three branches of government—judicial, executive, and legislative. With various levels, federal, state, county, and city? Or is it like medieval Europe with a king and fiefdoms run by vassal lords? Or something entirely new? Something familiar might take less thinking than something new, but even a familiar structure can have very different results based on laws, how the economy is run.

Think about these too. Write who is in charge, who was in charge, what laws have been passed. Keep in mind how people think about these things, and remember that different groups—and individuals—will view all of these things differently.

Introducing The Root of the Word

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Category: The Root of the Word

Written by Jem Wierenga

Words have meaning.

It’s something my mother always said, and by golly she was right! But not all words are coined equal. The Root of the Word is a bimonthly blog series designed to look into the etymology and evolution of some of the more exotic English words. It is also intended to help you, the writer, gain a better understanding of the subtlety of our language as well as appreciate the variegated aromas that words with dual definitions can add to your literary bouquet.

This series will not only look at specific words, their origins and correct usage, but will also touch upon how culture, history and regional preference have changed the meaning of words over time. Occasionally, we will also examine various theories of language (though I promise not to get too professorial!). Let's begin with a brief overview of definition.

Read more: Introducing The Root of the Word