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  • Student's exchange
  • Family pride

For the above examples, I want to understand why the apostrophe is or isn't used? How does one determine this?

BamfTheNightAway
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Learning
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1 Answers1

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Possession: Use an apostrophe to indicate that the noun to which the apostrophe is appended is the owner or possessor of the following noun or noun phrase.

"The student's union" is appropriate if the union is a thing owned by a single student to whom you're referring.

"The students' union" would indicate a union belonging to many students.

If the use is descriptive but not indicating possession or ownership, no apostrophe is used. Thus we could speak of "the students list" (a list of students, but not a list possessed by a student).

Here's a somewhat contrived example using all three:

"The first student's students list was more complete than the next two students' students lists."

Contraction: use an apostrophe to indicate omission of letters, as in "can not" -> "can't", etc.

Edwin Ashworth
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Scott
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  • Hello, Scott. Would that it were so simple! Some people become apoplectic at the thought that the words mens, childrens might be considered acceptable, but most working mens clubs use the former rather than the apostrophised version. Writers' guilds vie with writers guilds. (Institutional) dogs homes and dogs' homes exist. And when it comes to companies like Lloyds and Lloyd's, and places named after, for example, St James ... but all this has been covered here before. – Edwin Ashworth Nov 18 '15 at 11:43
  • Those are all consistent. "Writers guild" or "mens club" are like the "vegetables section" of the supermarket. It isn't owned by vegetables, it's where vegetables are found. – Scott Nov 18 '15 at 22:34
  • No they're not. St James Park in Exeter contrasts with St James's Park in London and St James' Park in Newcastle. Redbud Writers Guild contrasts with The Long Island Writers' Guild. Whitworth Working Mens Club contrasts with Houldsworth Working Men's Club. Another example: Manchester Dogs Home contrasts with Manchester & Cheshire Dogs' Home. Usage is inconsistent; you're trotting out a style recommendation as though it were to be found in CGEL. And you need to say where you found it, if it's a quote; if not, you need to cite an accepted guide recommending this practice. – Edwin Ashworth Nov 18 '15 at 23:54
  • Yes, the usage of plural and possessive adjectives is inconsistent. I mean all of your examples are consistent with the rule that an apostrophe indicates possession (except when it indicates contraction, which seemed tangential to the specific question and example). – Scott Nov 20 '15 at 01:16
  • Wrong again. Dogs don't own the Manchester & Cheshire Dogs' Home. St James' Park and St James's Park both exist. I hadn't spelled these out, but I pointed to them as examples. – Edwin Ashworth Nov 20 '15 at 01:41
  • Similarly, we refer to, e.g., "John's sisters" without meaning to imply that John actually owns his sisters. Your "Dogs' Home" example looks like a possessive determiner to me. They're all considered possessives grammatically, without implying ownership in a literal sense. – Scott Nov 20 '15 at 02:09
  • So you admit that 'the rule that an apostrophe indicates possession' isn't a rule at all. 'Possession' means ownership {The Free Dictionary}. The word is not used to refer to the grammatical usage. – Edwin Ashworth Nov 20 '15 at 17:56
  • https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Possession_(linguistics) has a good breakdown. – Scott Nov 23 '15 at 13:49
  • In the light of which I've retracted the downvote. But I'd say we've really got to specify if we're using that rare sense, even on ELU. However, though I'd use "We bought the children's clothes at the childrens clothing department at Herods / Herod's" (up to them how they want their name) myself, it's not a practice accepted by everyone; 'If the use is descriptive but not indicating possession or ownership, no apostrophe is used. Thus we ...' sounds very authoritarian, and isn't a 'rule' in English but rather a style recommendation. Is the above a quote (in which case it needs attributing)? – Edwin Ashworth Nov 23 '15 at 16:08