How To Recognize The Possessive Case In English

The Possessive Case in English is used to express possession. In some other languages like Latin and German, it is referred to as the Genitive case.

The Formation of the Possessive Case

The Possessive singular of nouns in English is formed by adding an apostrophe-s to words which do not end with an -s sound, e.g. "the boy's room." Add only the apostrophe to words which end with an s sound; e.g. the boys' room.

William Strunk's book "The Elements of Style" states that an apostrophe s should be added to the possessive singular, whatever the final consonant; e.g. Charles's friend or Burns's poems. Strunk says that this is the usage of the United States Government Printing Office and of the Oxford University Press. He further states that exceptions are "the possessive of ancient proper names in -es and -is; for example the possessive Jesus', and for conscience sake, for righteousness sake". He further adds that forms like Achilles' heel, Moses' laws, and Isis' temple are commonly replaced by

*the heel of Achilles

*the laws of Moses

*the temple of Isis

However, the use of the apostrophe in the possessive case seems to present a great problem even for speakers of English. An ESL student for example would undoubtedly be very puzzled if he approaches the photography department in a pharmacy and sees a sign on the wall displaying the words Magazine Cover's. Obviously what is meant is Magazine Covers.

When I was growing up, I was taught to listen to radio announcers in order to learn how to speak correct English. I was also told to read newspapers. However, with the increasing number of mistakes being made in both quarters these days, the language student of any language should always be on the alert to discover them. Ability to do this, is the mark of a discerning language student.

The Apostrophe

A discussion of the English Possessive case cannot be done without addressing the misuse of the apostrophe. As I mentioned in the beginning of this article, the apostrophe is used to express possession. However, the apostrophe is also used to indicate missing letters in a contraction, for example:

*It's too hot (it is)

*John can't come this evening(cannot)

The apostrophe is also used to form plurals of letters, figures and symbols, because there are no conventional plurals for these. For example, if you should see the following written "in the 1970's", surely you should recognize that this is not a Possessive case.

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