's

Woebot

Well-known member
Ok. Will someone please put me straight once and for all?

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Is the correct form this?

Williams Snack Bar (as in The Snack Bar belonging to William)

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I think i'm correct in not punctuating it thus:

William's Snack Bar (as in The Snack Bar belonging to William)

Which is the way practically everyone does it......

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Am I right in thinking that 's should only be used in this context:

William's late (as in William is late)

or this

There's a snack bar! (as in There is a snack bar!)

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Get back to me aight!


 

henrymiller

Well-known member
no, it's

william's snack bar.

short for (???) william HIS snack bar.

william's tired = william IS tired.

the key thing is it's/its though
 

henrymiller

Well-known member
it's cold = it IS cold

didn't achive its object = did not achieve object belonging to it

however it's still 'william's object'.
 

Rambler

Awanturnik
Sorry Matt - the second (and third one) are right, not the first.

To show possession, 's always goes after the thing or person that is doing the possessing. Thus:

William's Snack Bar (snack bar belonging to William)

Often though, if the word already ends in s, you just put an apostrophe after that, rather than s's. Thus:

Williams' Snack Bar (snack bar belonging to Mr Williams).

Exceptions are hers (belonging to her) and its (belonging to it), which don't take apostrophes for possession.

ALSO:

there is a snack bar > there's a snack bar

William is a snack bar owner > William's a snack bar owner

it is a snack bar > it's a snack bar
 

jenks

thread death
rambler, do you want to come and teach my year tens?
notice nobody wanted to grapple the problem of the plural apostrophe i.e the boys' school ( that is the school belonging to all of the boys)
as oppposed to my boy's school - one boy

all i can say about this is that english teachers find the apostrphe on eof those things which either sticks or doesn't. there's a very good forum which discusses this and other language related stuff mark boardman's langauge list and there is a message board thing for students run by e-julie called languagelegend, both invaluable.
 

Rambler

Awanturnik
jenks said:
rambler, do you want to come and teach my year tens?

How does it pay? ;)

I just had an excellent English teacher who taught me the trick about apostrophes, and it stuck.
 

jenks

thread death
when i heard princess superstar say "i'm gonna own everything like i'm an apostrophe" part of me saluted an excellent piece of figurative language but the pedant part quibbled - as an earlier post stated it's about absence not possession, for example in the "possessive apostrophe" it is a remnant from when English was inflected and had lots of endings, the missing letter is usually, but not exclusively an e as in: Johnnes shop = John's shop.
 
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Woebot

Well-known member
Rambler said:
Exceptions are hers (belonging to her) and its (belonging to it), which don't take apostrophes for possession.

rambler you rule.

i think its was where i got unstuck. had my knuckles rapped and went into a grammatical free-fall!

and i was going to ask about s' and youve saved me further humiliation!

thanks everyone
 

jenks

thread death
i sent my wife a valentine yesterday (yes soppy) however we ended up rowing over where i had placed the apostrophe - i had said "happy valentines' day" as in the day of all valentines, after all we say be my valentine whereas she insisted it should be "happy valentine's day" as it is st. valentine's day - you can see the confusion.
i pointed it was nice of her to argue over the finer points of punctuation instead of appreciating the sentiment but that only led to another row, oh it's a laugh a minute in the jenks' household!
 
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