by Sheila-Ann Bender

Created on: November 06, 2011

Possessive nouns are closely related to plural nouns, and people easily get the two confused.  The difference between the two is that possessive nouns show ownership over something else, while plural nouns specify more than one.  This sounds simple on paper, but learning how to use each type of noun correctly can get complicated.

1. Possessive nouns characteristically contain an apostrophe.  Simply put, if a noun needs to show ownership, add an apostrophe + s.  An example is:

The coach took away “Wade’s” uniform when he dropped him from the team.  

The uniform had belonged to “Wade”.  It did not belong to the team.  It did not belong to Stevie, Joey or Frankie.  It belonged to “Wade”. 

This may sound easy enough, but the English language also has a few curve balls.  For instance:

2. A few nouns in the English language are treated as plurals, even though they have no ‘s’.  An ‘s’ is never added to indicate a plural amount, but an apostrophe + s is added to make such words possessive.  Some examples of such words are deer, fish, children, women and men.

The deer’s ear was shot off by a hunter during hunting season last year.  The ear belonged to the deer in question.  However, whether one deer or twenty or grazing in the pasture, an ‘s’ is not added to indicate plural form. 

And to make things even more complex:

3. Sometimes plural nouns that already end in ‘s’ need to be turned into possessive nouns when showing ownership of something that belongs to more than one. In such cases, it is only necessary to add an apostrophe, but not ‘s’.  Examples are: Turkeys’ pen (a flock is housed in one pen); The Jones’ house (the house belongs to the Jones family unit).  In each case a second ‘s’ is not added after the apostrophe.

4. One of the most complex tasks with possessive nouns is how to indicate possession when two nouns are joined, but ownership is separate.  In this case, each noun gets an apostrophe + ‘s’.  For example:

Tiger Woods’ and Mel Gibson’s stupidity may have cost them their careers.  (Stupidity is a 'thing' as used in this sentence, and they each have their own stupid things to own up to). 

On the other hand, if two people, places or things share an object, possession only needs to be specified

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