In order to properly use the apostrophe, it is necessary to understand the difference between contractions and possessives of personal pronouns. Before you go "Yecchh! It's a grammar geek!" remember that if you understand how to use apostrophes, you will be ahead of a majority of the scribblers out there in the business world and elsewhere.

But before we launch into the subject, let's clear up one thing. Those doing "formal writing" do not have the worry about contractions, since they are not used. Instead, spell out every "don't" as "do not," and every "shouldn't" as "should not." This goes for the rest of those buggers, as well.

Let's start with contractions, as they are easier to deal with.

Those of you into sustainability will be glad to know that the use of contractions saves letters and space. For example:

"It is a boy" can be rewritten as "It's a boy."

"Who is there?" is also written as "Who's there?"

"We are listening" is also correct as "We're listening."

"You were not there" can also be "You weren't there."

"The Crash of 2009" could also be "The Crash of '09."

Think of all the letters you can now recycle...

Now let us (or let's) look at one of the true problem children, when it comes to inappropriate apostrophe usage: the wily "IT." You can see it misused on everything from newspaper ads and car lot banners to screen text on the evening news.

You can say "It is a boy" or "It's a boy" but you can't say "Its a boy." And why not?

Because "its" is a plural form of the pronoun "it" and like its fellow pronouns below, will not be caught dead hanging around apostrophes:

Whose

Yours

Theirs

Ours

His

Hers

Part of the confusion may lie in the fact that the English language is full of homonyms, those sound-alike tricksters that pull pranks on us just for laughs. Examples are

There, their, they're.

There's, theirs.

Whose, who's.

Your, yore.

So remember what Cousin It's friends used to say about him and his low self-esteem: "It's clear that It is a good guy, even if Its opinion of himself is lacking."

Or, as they say at the baby elephant cage: "It's clear to me that it is time to change its diapers."

We still have to understand and recognize pronouns, and how they differ from the possessive ones.

The pronouns "I" and Me" are not possessive, but "My" and "Mine" are.

Same for "You" as opposed to "Your" or "Yours."

Or "We" and "Us" as opposed to "Our" and "Ours."

Notice that there are no apostrophes in the possessive pronouns.

To review:

"It's a horse, and its coat is shiny."

"Who's here, and whose car is that?"

"You're not funny and neither is your friend."

"They're all sick, but their doctor is on the way."

One other situation to be aware of has to do with indefinite pronouns and nouns. Apostrophes are used where the following proper noun (Gertrude) owns or has a relationship to the nouns or verb that follow:

"Gertrude's hamsters" or "Gertrude's leaving" or "Gertrude's attitude."

The same holds true for plain old nouns like "truth:" For truth's sake."

Learn more about this author, Dan Hiland.
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