Apostrophe - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. For the Romanian village of Apo. In English it is used for several purposes. The apostrophe also looks similar to, but is not the same as, the prime symbol ( . Such incorrect substitutes as . It was frequently used in place of a final e (which was still pronounced at the time) when it was elided before a vowel, as in un. English language usage Historical development. The apostrophe was first used by Pietro Bembo in his edition of De Aetna (1496). It was introduced into English in the 16th century in imitation of French practice. Reproductive Technologies and the Risk of Birth Defects. Davies, M.P.H., Ph.D., Vivienne M. Moore, M.P.H., Ph.D., Kristyn J. Willson, B.Sc., Phillipa Van Essen, M.P.H., Kevin Priest, B.Sc., Heather.
Modern French orthography has restored the spelling une heure. English spelling retained many inflections that were not pronounced as syllables, notably verb endings (- est, - eth, - es, - ed) and the noun ending - es, which marked either plurals or possessives (also known as genitives; see Possessive apostrophe, below). So apostrophe followed by s was often used to mark a plural, especially when the noun was a loan word (and especially a word ending in a, as in the two comma. By the 1. 8th century, apostrophe + s was regularly used for all possessivesingular forms, even when the letter e was not omitted (as in the gate. This was regarded as representing the Old Englishgenitive singular inflection- es. The plural use was greatly reduced, but a need was felt to mark possessiveplural. The solution was to use an apostrophe after the plurals (as in girls. However, this was not universally accepted until the mid- 1. This convention distinguishes possessive singular forms (Bernadette. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, Sertraline, or a Combination in Childhood Anxiety. Walkup, M.D., Anne Marie Albano, Ph.D., John Piacentini, Ph.D., Boris Birmaher, M.D., Scott N. Compton, Ph.D., Joel T. For singulars, the modern possessive or genitive inflection is a survival from certain genitive inflections in Old English, and the apostrophe originally marked the loss of the old e (for example, lambes became lamb. The complete list of those ending in the letter s or the corresponding sound /s/ or /z/ but not taking an apostrophe is ours, yours, his, hers, its, theirs, and whose. Other pronouns, singular nouns not ending in s, and plural nouns not ending in s all take . A widely accepted practice is to follow whichever spoken form is judged better: the boss. In many cases, both spoken and written forms differ between writers. These principles are universally accepted. A few English nouns have plurals that are not spelled with a final s but nevertheless end in an /s/ or a /z/ sound: mice (plural of mouse; also in compounds like dormouse, titmouse), dice (when used as the plural of die), pence (a plural of penny, with compounds like sixpence that now tend to be taken as singulars). In the absence of specific exceptional treatment in style guides, the possessives of these plurals are formed by adding an apostrophe and an s in the standard way: seven titmice. These would often be rephrased, where possible: the last fall of the dice was a seven. A problem therefore arises with the possessive plurals of these compounds. Sources that rule on the matter appear to favour the following forms, in which there is both an s added to form the plural, and a separate s added for the possessive: the attorneys- general. The issue of the use of the apostrophe arises when the coordinate construction includes a noun (phrase) and a pronoun. In this case, the inflection of only the last item may sometimes be, at least marginally, acceptable (. Jack's and your dogs), but there is a tendency to avoid this construction, too, in favour of a construction that does not use a coordinate possessive (e. Many style guides, while allowing that these constructions are possible, advise rephrasing: the head of marketing. If an original apostrophe, or apostrophe with s, occurs at the end, it is left by itself to do double duty: Our employees are better paid than Mc. Donald. For similar cases involving geographical names, see below. Similarly, the possessives of all phrases whose wording is fixed are formed in the same way. For complications with foreign phrases and titles, see below. Time, money, and similar. An apostrophe is used in time and money references, among others, in constructions such as one hour. This is like an ordinary possessive use. For example, one hour. Exceptions are accounted for in the same way: three months pregnant (in modern usage, one says neither pregnant of three months, nor one month(. President Thomas Jefferson used it. With plural forms, the apostrophe follows the s, as with nouns: the others. The spelling of these ends with - s, - se, - z, - ze, - ce, - x, or - xe. Many respected authorities recommend that practically all singular nouns, including those ending with a sibilant sound, have possessive forms with an extra s after the apostrophe so that the spelling reflects the underlying pronunciation. Examples include Oxford University Press, the Modern Language Association, the BBC and The Economist. Rules that modify or extend the standard principle have included the following: If the singular possessive is difficult or awkward to pronounce with an added sibilant, do not add an extra s; these exceptions are supported by The Guardian,! As a particular case, Jesus' is very commonly written instead of Jesus. There is often a policy of leaving off the additional s on any such name, but this can prove problematic when specific names are contradictory (for example, St James. James's Park in London). Having said that, there has been ongoing debate around the punctuation of St James' Park (Newcastle) for some time, contrary to St James's Park (London) which is the less contentious version. For more details on practice with geographic names, see the relevant section below. Some writers like to reflect standard spoken practice in cases like these with sake: for convenience' sake, for goodness. This punctuation is preferred in major style guides. Others prefer to add . The informal majority view (5. Some people prefer Descartes' and Dumas', while others insist on Descartes. Similar examples with x or z: Sauce P. The same principles and residual uncertainties apply with . These names were mainly fixed in form many years before grammatical rules were fully standardised. While Newcastle United play football at a stadium called St James. The special circumstances of the latter case may be this: the customary pronunciation of this place name is reflected in the addition of an extra - s; since usage is firmly against a doubling of the final - s without an apostrophe, this place name has an apostrophe. This could be regarded as an example of a double genitive: it refers to the park of the parish of St James. Modern usage has been influenced by considerations of technological convenience including the economy of typewriter ribbons and films, and similar computer character . Usage is variable and inconsistent. Style guides typically advise consulting an official source for the standard form of the name (as one would do if uncertain about other aspects of the spelling of the name); some tend towards greater prescriptiveness, for or against such an apostrophe. In recent times there has been an increasing tendency to drop the apostrophe. Names based on a first name are more likely to take an apostrophe, but this is not always the case. Some business names may inadvertently spell a different name if the name with an s at the end is also a name, such as Parson. A small activist group called the Apostrophe Protection Society. A spokesperson for Barclays PLC stated, . Barclays is no longer associated with the family name. It may indicate omitted numbers where the spoken form is also capable of omissions, as . In modern usage, apostrophes are generally omitted when letters are removed from the start of a word, particularly for a compound word. For example, it is not common to write . However, if the shortening is unusual, dialectal or archaic, the apostrophe may still be used to mark it (e. Sometimes a misunderstanding of the original form of a word results in an incorrect contraction. Wolverhampton abbreviated as . Some specific cases: For groups of years, some style guides prefer 1. This use of an apostrophe may be more acceptable in American than in British English. Most style guides are against this usage. Some style guides state that the apostrophe is unnecessary since there is no ambiguity but that some editors and teachers prefer this usage. The apostrophe here may be seen as marking a contraction where the prefix Mc or Mac would normally appear. However, it may also arise from confusion of . For example: in the Arabic word mus'haf, a transliteration of . For example: in the Arabic word Qur'an, a common transliteration of (part of) . For example: in the Arabic word Ka'aba for . The British founder of the Apostrophe Protection Society earned a 2. Ig Nobel prize for . The practice, once common and acceptable (see Historical development), comes from the identical sound of the plural and possessive forms of most English nouns. It is often criticised as a form of hypercorrection coming from a widespread ignorance of the proper use of the apostrophe or of punctuation in general. Lynne Truss, author of Eats, Shoots & Leaves, points out that before the 1. Truss says this usage is no longer considered proper in formal writing. Some have argued that its use in mass communication by employees of well- known companies has led to the less literate assuming it to be correct and adopting the habit themselves. For example, in Dutch, the apostrophe is inserted before the s when pluralising most words ending in a vowel or y for example, baby. This often produces so- called . For example, the French word pin. Similarly, there is an Andorran football club called FC R. Signs in Tesco advertise (among other items) . In his book Troublesome Words, author Bill Bryson lambasts Tesco for this, stating that . He did not use it for spelling cant, hes, etc., in many of his writings. He did, however, allow I. Lewis Carroll made greater use of apostrophes, and frequently used sha. This apostrophe is often thought to be a mistake; but in fact it marks omission of the letter d. The name comes from the Scouse slang for . George Bernard Shaw called them . In his book American Speech, linguist Steven Byington stated of the apostrophe that .
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