Writers Tricks of the Trade Vol. 5, Issue 4 | Page 19

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THERE IS SUCH A WEALTH

A WRITER’S BANE:

OF INFORMATION ON THE
WEB—YOU JUST NEED TO
KNOW WHERE TO FIND IT.

WRITERS TRICKS OF THE
TRADE IS CONSTANTLY ON

THE DISEASE’S OF APOSTROPHE’S
Originally posted on Indies Unlimited by Melissa Bowersock

THE LOOKOUT FOR
HELPFUL WEBSITES.

There is a wealth of good articles on the Indies Unlimited site and Melissa
Bowersock gave us permission to reprint this one. You will probably recognize all,
or at least some, of these faux pas.

THANK YOU MELISSA
BOWERSOCK AND
INDIESUNLIMITED.COM

MELISSA BOWERSOCK
AUTHOR
Melissa Bowersock is
an eclectic awardwinning writer who
turns her hand to any
kind of story that
moves her:
contemporary,
western, fantasy,
romance,
action/adventure,
biography, spiritual or
satire. She thrives in
the Sonoran desert of
Southern Arizona with
her husband and an
Airedale terrier. She is
also a certified
hypnotherapist.

I first began to notice it many years ago. Some people had trouble with its and it’s, a
common confusion. But then it began to spread, like a cancer, across Facebook and
Twitter, those bastions of common usage and colloquialism. When it began showing
up in writers’ forums, I knew it was reaching epic proportions. The virulent, creeping
Disease’s of the Apostrophe’s.
“I bought some DVD’s …”
“How many like’s can I get …”
“Where can I promote my book’s for Kindle…”
I get it when it comes to the its and it’s. Most possessives have an apostrophe, as in
Pandora’s box or Burke’s law. But pronouns (which it is) don’t — like his, her and
their. The apostrophe in it’s is because it’s a contraction (of it is), not because it’s a
possessive case.
Of course the vast majority of possessives do use the apostrophe. My father’s house.
A child’s plaything. Any noun or proper noun will use the apostrophe when it’s in a
possessive case. But those first examples singled out above? Where’s the possessive
in any of those? There are no possessives and there are no contractions, ergo … NO
apostrophe needed.
Just because a word ends in s doesn’t mean it needs an apostrophe.

JULY-AUGUST 2015 To add to the confusion, in possessive cases, the useWRITERS’ TRICKS OF THE TRADE the
of apostrophes changes with
PAGE 8
number of objects. A singular object, my sister’s book, requires the apostrophe
between the noun and the s. However, if I have 5 or 10 sisters, and they all have