Apostrophes in possessive nouns.
Apostrophes are used to show the omission of letters in contractions.
For example: 'could not' 'couldn't', 'they have' 'they've'. Apostrophes are also used to show
possession or ownership. That is when something belongs to someone or
something else. Here is an example: 'The dog's bowl is empty.' This word is what we call
a possessive noun. A noun that is in possession of something. Possessive nouns
need an apostrophe. The apostrophe shows possession.
The teacher's desk is tidy
The baby's mother is tired. That's my friend's house. Can you see the
possessive nouns in these sentences?
Here's the first: 'teacher's', 'The teacher's desk'. The desk belongs to the teacher.
The next: 'baby's', 'baby's mother'. the mother belongs to the baby. the last sentence
has two words with apostrophes, but only one possessive noun, 'friend's' because it's
the 'friend's house'. the word 'that's' is a contraction, short for 'that is'.
These are examples of singular possessive nouns. Singular possessive
nouns need an apostrophe before the S.
The rule changes slightly when showing possession with a plural now. Let's go
back to our first sentence, but now let's imagine two dogs sharing the bowl.
The apostrophe is moved to after the S. 'The dogs' bowl is empty.' From this we know
that the bowl belongs to more than one dog. Now let's go back to the sentence,
'The teacher's desk is tidy.' If the desk belonged to more than one teacher, we
would need to place the apostrophe after the S to show it is a plural possessive.
'The teachers' desk is tidy.' The third sentence was, 'The baby's mother is tired.'
If the mother belonged to more than one baby, we would need to place the
apostrophe after the S, and now that we're writing the plural form of the
word baby, we'll need to change the Y to an I and add 'es'. Then we put our
apostrophe after the S. This sentence now shows that the mother belongs to more
than one baby. So to show possession for singular nouns, we add an apostrophe
before the S and for regular plural nouns we simply add an apostrophe after
the S.
Irregular plurals are an exception. An irregular plural is a noun that does not
become plural by adding S or ES. For example: 'tooth' 'teeth', 'woman' 'women',
'child' 'children'. This sentence reads: 'The woman's idea is interesting.' This shows
that the idea belongs to one woman. If we want to show that two or more women have
the idea, the apostrophe cannot go after the S because 'womens' is not a word.
The apostrophe goes before the S. 'The women's idea is interesting.' Another example:
'Here are the child's toys.' The toys belong to one child. Let's say the toys belong to
more than one child. The plural form of 'child' is 'children'. We don't put the
apostrophe after the S because 'childrens' isn't a word. Because it's an
irregular plural, the apostrophe goes before the S.
If a proper noun ends with an S, for example, James, it is correct to either
add or leave off the final S. For example 'James's books'. Apostrophes are missing
from possessive nouns in the following sentences. These sentences have singular
nouns and these sentences have plural nouns. Find the possessive nouns and then
work out where the apostrophes belong. Pause here while you work them out.
Let's start with the singular nouns. Here are the possessive nouns: 'frog skin', 'Tim's
house', 'fisherman's net'. In each, we must place the apostrophe before the S.
Now on to the plural nouns. Here are the possessive nouns: 'girls play date',
'brother's bedroom' and 'men's fishing trip'.
The apostrophe in the first two is placed after the S. Because 'men' is an
irregular plural, the apostrophe is placed directly after the word 'men', so it
goes before the S.
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