Today on LetThemTalkTV an apostrophe trick so that you'll never confuse your possessive apostrophes
again and how to use hyphens correctly in a sentence. A hyphen is the little line that
connects words together. Are you ready? OK let's go look at the sentence “I'm going to take three
weeks holiday this summer” . My question is, is there an apostrophe or not? In the sentence
what do you think the answer is yes there is but, second question, where do you place it?
That's right after the S in WEEKS “three weeks’ holiday” like that but what about this sentence?
“three weeks ago I took my holidays.” Is there an apostrophe or not? the answer is
no apostrophe. Here's a quick overview of how to use the possessive apostrophe correctly. Firstly
you'll notice that the apostrophe goes after the S in a plural and before the s in a singular in some
cases you only know if it's a plural in written English for example the boy’s books or the boys’
books. They are said the same but in written English we know if there is only one or many
boys from the placing of the apostrophe. There is a debate about what to do if the possessive
noun finishes in an s, for example, “Paris's tallest building” . Some style guides say that
you should omit the second S and others say that you should put the second S in. It's confusing and
there is no correct answer. I discuss it more in this video here. Do remember though the second S
must be pronounced if it's written or not. For example “Paris's tallest building.”
As always there is at least one exception and here it is “Achilles heel” not “Achilles's heel” and if
the word finishes with an S sound even if it's not an S you still need to pronounce it for example
“Paris is France's biggest city.” “We're going to Alice's restaurant this evening.” When writing,
the confusion comes from the fact that you can have a plural which is also a possessive
and a plural that is not a possessive. The possessive usually precedes a noun or an
adjective and a noun but not always as we'll see in a moment. “So three weeks’ holiday” HOLIDAY is
a noun. “Three weeks ago.” AGO is an adverb but if you're not sure whether
the phrase has an apostrophe or not then try the following trick. Let's go back to the first
sentence “three weeks’ holiday.” now here's the trick. Change the sentence to a singular OK. use
one and see if there's still an S at the end if it still sounds correct when you're saying it
“I'm going to take one week's holiday next month.” So there is still an S. Sounds correct doesn't it?
“One week's holiday.” “I'm going to take one week's holiday.” “I'm going to take one week
holiday next month.” No that's not right. That sounds wrong. Three weeks ago I took my holiday.
Change to one “one week ago I took my holiday.” it still works doesn't it so you know you don't
need an apostrophe here. Let's look at one more example. “We've got two days remaining before the
ceremony.” Is there an apostrophe and if so where? Change it to a singular, to one,
“one day remaining” it's still perfectly correct so we don't need an apostrophe
“the flight will land with several hours delay.” Is there an apostrophe? Let's see.
Change to a singular “one hour’s delay” yeah that sounds right doesn't it? “one hour's delay.”
So it's correct so the plural must have an apostrophe. You got it? That's easy but be careful
because the possessive apostrophe might come after the noun in the phrase but once again how do you
know if it's possessive and a plural or only a plural? Here we can use our cunning trick. For
example “my spelling is worse than my students” Is there an apostrophe? Let's say that students is a
plural. Let's put an apostrophe there after the S “my spelling is worse than my students’” That
could be true by the way I'm not a great speller. Now is the sentence correct? Make the sentence a
singular “my spelling is worse than my student’s.” Apostrophe before the S yes! Even with one student
it's still got an S sound. It's correct. “worse than my students’” yes that's always correct OK
so it does have an apostrophe. So it must be both a possessive and a plural so students’
with an apostrophe at the end is correct. In fact the complete sentence would be “my spelling is
worse than my students’ spelling” but we don't want to repeat the word SPELLING so it's omitted
for reasons of style. What about this sentence? “I like ice cream and so do my students.” Is there an
apostrophe after students? Put it in the singular “I like ice cream and so does my student.”
No S so STUDENTS is just a plural so it's not followed by an apostrophe. You got it? By the way,
we can also admit the word HOME after a possessive of the name of the person who lives there.
Let me show you what I mean. “I'm staying at my girlfriend's tonight.” You do not need to write
or say the word HOME or APARTMENT or HOUSE etc. It's clear from the context that you do, however,
need the apostrophe. A couple more examples in a sentence “I had dinner at Bob's last night.”
“I left my car at mum’s.” The adjectival hyphen. Let's go back because there is
another way of expressing some of these sentences we just used with hyphens instead of
apostrophes. Let's look at this sentence again. “I have three weeks’ holiday next month.” Can
you rewrite this sentence with a hyphen instead of an apostrophe? Yes we can and we do it like this:
Remove the S from WEEKS and then put a hyphen between the number and WEEK
“I have a three-week holiday next month.” OK, here WEEK has no S why? Because THREE-WEEK
has been changed into an adjective and words that form the adjectives are hyphenated. You can
only do this when the last word in the phrase is a noun so sometimes you have to switch things round.
In English adjectives don't have plurals unlike some other languages so no S. Let's look at some
more examples: “The child is four years old.” Can you rewrite this sentence with a hyphen?
What do you think? Yes we can but we need to put the noun at the end, remember? And remove the S
from years. A four-year-old child. That's right with two hyphens. That reminds me of the old
Groucho Marx joke: “here's the report, do you understand it?” - “of course, a four-year-old
child could understand it. Hey go and find me a four-year-old child. I don't understand
this report at all” Let's look at a couple more examples.'' The building has five storeys.” a
storey by the way just means a floor when looking at a building from the outside. So put the noun
at the end. That's BUILDING and we get - can you rewrite it? that's right “a five-storey building.”
“I work 35 hours a week” or “I work” that's right “ a 35-hour week.” You got it. right
you're getting the hang of it now “The lesson lasted 10 minutes.” or “it was a 10-minute lesson”
Now a common mistake I hear is not removing the S from the phrase. For example “a five minutes
lesson” no that's not correct it's “a five-minute lesson.” “The prisoner received a two years
prison sentence.” not correct “a two-year prison sentence” with a hyphen. OK remember the hyphen
here are some other examples of hyphens. Note that in these examples there's no apostrophe version
you have to use the hyphenated version. “Their one-week course was interesting but the six-month
course was better”. Tonight we're going to stay in a five-star hotel. I hope you found that
interesting. It should help with your written English stay mellow and see you next time