Apostrophe possession exercises
Apostrophes for possession
Why do we need apostrophes?
We use apostrophes for two reasons:
1) To show something belonging to one or more things.
2) To shorten two words into one word – is not = isn’t, could have = could’ve etc. These are called contractions.
Possession Rules
To show that something belongs to something, a sentence needs a subject and an object. The subject is who the sentence is about. The object is something relating to the subject.
If we want to show that one thing or person (the subject) owns something (the object) we put 's after the subject:
Kevin’s car (the car belonging to Kevin), Alison’s dress (the dress belonging to Alison), the dog’s lead (the lead belonging to the dog) , David’s shirts (the shirts belonging to David) etc.
These are examples of singular possession.
If we want to show that an object belongs to more than one subject or thing we put s' after the subject:
The dogs’ kennel (the kennel belonging to the dogs), the cars’ windows (the windows of the cars , the miners’ faces (the faces of the miners), the soldiers’ weapons (the weapons of the soldiers) etc.
These are examples of plural possession.
Care needs to be taken with plural possession. The examples listed above show things belonging to groups of things/people (cars, dogs, soldiers, miners). If we were to write about something belonging to a group of people and we named them, we would have to use 's again:
Rob, Kelly, John and Maria’s night was ruined by the bad weather.
We do this because although there are four people, each one is an individual and our sentence is recognising them as individual people not as a group of people. The apostrophe is only used after the last name in the group.
But what about people whose name ends in the letter s?
This often causes confusion but remember these three rules and be confused no more:
1) If you are writing about one person whose first name ends in s, add 's – Wes’s coat was on the floor.
2) If you are writing about one person whose surname ends in s, add 's – Steve Davis’s bike was always in immaculate condition.
3) If you are writing about a family whose name ends in s, add an apostrophe after the s – The Wilkins’ dog was always barking at people.
This last rule applies to other families whose names don’t end in s as well – The Bartons’ house was up for sale. The Smiths’ garden was always well kept.
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