Mine! Help with possessives

Today, I'm going to cover some of the basics of expressing ownership in writing, because it's something I frequently see mangled in shop windows, on billboards, and in manuscripts.

These rules apply to NOUNS only. For the rules on possessive pronouns, see this post: It's your day to master tricky possessives.

photo by Jade, morguefile.com

Singular nouns

To indicate ownership, add an apostrophe and S to singular nouns (no matter what the ending consonant) Some examples are below.

John's box
Yeats's poems
Dickens's novels
Josh's guitar
Dax's leadership
Inez's marimba

Some style guides make an exception for certain Greek names ending in S: Jesus' life, Demosthenes' pebbles. If you chose to do this, be consistent. 

Plural nouns

First, correctly form the plural.
~Most simply take an S (including names that end with a Y)
~Words and names ending with a sibilant sound such as CH, S, SH, X or Z take an ES ending
~Many common nouns ending in Y take an IES ending
~Some semi-irregular nouns will change the final consonant and take an ES
~Certain Latin words will switch from IS to ES
~Irregular nouns will mutate, including some Latin, Greek, and French words.
When in doubt, look it up. Here's a useful list of oddball plural forms.

With plural nouns ending in s, indicate ownership by adding an apostrophe alone.
For irregular plurals that don't end in an S, indicate ownership by adding an apostrophe and an S (just like a singular noun).

Some examples are below.

With a simple ending:
girls' first win
games' culmination
magicians' secrets
Smiths' deck
Grants' party
boys' turn
turkeys' pen
O'Reillys' bar

With a sibilant ending:
boxes' contents
fezzes' tassels
churches' service times
Rosses' ranch
Collinses' house
Mirouxes' vineyard
Sanchezes' boat

Y ending common nouns:
babies' cribs
puppies' owners
categories' rules
deliveries' arrival

Semi-irregular nouns:
(loaf) loaves' ingredients
(wife) wives' opinions
(elf) elves' fortress
(matrix) matrices' origins

Latin end-vowel changers:
(crisis) crises' causes
(parenthesis) parentheses' color
(oasis) oases' merchants

Irregular nouns:
(mouse) mice's cages
(goose) geese's nests
(ox) oxen's stalls
(child) children's menu
(man) men's restroom
(medium) media's constraints
(curriculum) curricula's format
(fungus) fungi's characteristics
(beau) beaux's names and numbers

Note: If you struggle with apostrophes, avoid giving characters first names ending in s (like Alexis or Joss) or last names ending in s, sh, ch, x or z (like Robbins, Marsh, Koch, Leax, Lopez). You'll eliminate many headaches and confusion for yourself.

Mixed groups

Generally you want the same number of apostrophes as items possessed.

For shared ownership, one apostrophe:
Jane and Jordan's new apartment
Frost and Wright's collection

Similar items that are owned (or were created) by separate people or entities take multiple apostrophes:
Kimball's and Jones's books on the Civil War
Girls' and boys' locker rooms
Owen's and the Mosses' cars

With mixed combinations (like a single person and a couple), make the number of apostrophes match the number of items:
The tree fell on Tim's and Dave and Becky's houses.
Two houses, two apostrophes.


Probably the most common errors occur with names ending in S where it's unclear whether you're dealing with one person or a group. You can go to Ross's house or the Rosses' house, but please don't ever talk about Ross' house. It's just confusing.

Which of these things tend to trip you up? 

Read More

It's your day to master tricky possessives

I've been reading more Indie authors these days, now that I'm one myself. One error I keep seeing is confusion about its/it's, who's/whose, etc. It seemed that a quick primer would be useful to lots of folks.

The rule here is very simple. Put it on an index card if you must.

Simple pronouns DO NOT take apostrophes in their possessive form. 
Pronouns morph into new words.
If there is ownership involved, no apostrophe. Got it?

Here is a quick run-down of the pronouns and their possessive forms:

I love MY sweater. It is MINE.

YOU love YOUR sweater. It is YOURS.

HE loves HIS sweater. It is HIS.

SHE loves HER sweater. It is HERS.

IT displays ITS sweaters. They are ITS.

WE love OUR sweaters. They are OURS.

YOU (plural, like y'all) love YOUR sweaters. They are YOURS.

THEY love THEIR sweaters. The sweaters are THEIRS.

WHO loves WHOSE sweaters? The sweaters are WHOSE?

These stand-ins for nouns take apostrophes only as contractions--when paired with a truncated verb (who's means who is, who was, or who has). I'll give more detailed descriptions in a separate post.

Compound pronouns behave like nouns. They DO use an apostrophe in the possessive form:
anybody's picture
anyone's coat
everybody's problem
everyone's favorite
nobody's fool
no one's girl
somebody's pet
someone's present

Do possessive pronouns trip you up? 

Read More

Dashing

If you thought this was going to be a post about Olympic sprinters, I'm sorry to disappoint. It's about punctuation. Specifically, my pal the em dash.

An em dash — gets its name from the typesetters of old. It is a dash the width of a lowercase m. It is not to be confused with the trusty hyphen - or the en dash – (a lowercase n in width, and seldom used in fiction. My typesetter at work uses them in page ranges, like 23–46).

Em dashes have a few primary functions in fiction:
1. To show an interruption or stuttering, spluttering speech


"I just got back from—"
"Liar! I saw your lights on an hour ago."

"She just — she isn't — she never should have gone there in the first place!"

2. To punctuate an aside or explanation, instead of using formal-looking parentheses or colons

I took care of all the pets — not that you asked — and really need a moment to rest.

Stuart did exactly what the coach asked — lengthened his stride, pumped his arms, and kept his posture tall.

3. To set off long, descriptive appositives, instead of a tangle of commas

The coach's instructions — lengthen your stride, pump your arms, keep your posture tall — helped Stuart improve his performance immediately.

Linda's dress — teal brocade with slashed sleeves, plunging neckline and seed-pearl trim — was the talk of this year's Renaissance Fest.

Em dashes typically appear automatically as you type in Microsoft Word when you type two hyphens, followed by more text. They don't automatically appear if you follow them by, say, a quotation mark. This means you often need to hand-code sections of dialogue. Irritating, I know.

If pull-down menus make you batty, consider using a keyboard short cut. For PC users, type Alt+ 0151 (type the numbers while holding the Alt key--I like my number pad for this). Mac users, type Option+ Shift+  - (type a hyphen while holding the Option and Shift keys).

So, I have a minor dilemma when it comes to using em dashes: How to space around them?

The Elements of Grammar book has no spaces around them.
The entire Harry Potter series has spaces on each side of them.
I've seen a few published books in which there's no space before, but one after IF it's representing stuttering or spluttering.

I have to make a style decision in order to get my novel ready for layout. I'm leaning toward following Scholastic's lead in how they formatted Rowling's books. There's a nice openness to the look.

What do you think? Do you like this—tight look? Do you prefer this — open look? Or do a hybrid?

Read More

Editor-on-Call: ending apostrophe abuse*

Apostrophes remain the most abused punctuation out there. I see them misused on billboards and shop window signs, in manuscripts I critique and blogs I stalk. After critiquing three manuscripts with apostrophe issues, I thought I should revisit the issue.

My number one take away message:
If you don't know how to form the plural of a word, LOOK IT UP.
Don't use an apostrophe unless the dictionary or a style guide says to do so. Got it?

Thank you. I feel much better now. Now, onto when and how you should use apostrophes.

Mine! Mine!
Apostrophes and possessives

To indicate ownership, add an apostrophe and s to singular nouns (no matter what the ending consonant) and plurals that don't end in s. Some examples are below.

John's box
Yeats's poems
Inez's marimba
Children's menu
Men's restroom

With plural nouns ending in s, indicate ownership by adding an apostrophe alone. Be sure that the plural is correctly formed first. (When in doubt, look it up.) Errors creep in with names especially. Names ending in y simply take an s. Names ending with ch, s, sh, x or z take an es when made plural. Some examples are below.

Girls' first win
Grants' party
O'Reillys' bar
Collinses' house
Mirouxes' vineyard

Note: If you struggle with apostrophes, avoid giving characters first names ending in s (like Alexis or Joss) or last names ending in s, sh, ch, x or z (like Robbins, Koch, Leax, Sanchez). You'll eliminate many headaches and confusion for yourself.

Beware the masqueraders!
PROnouns, those handy stand-in words that keep us from sounding incredibly redundant, do not use apostrophes in their possessive forms. Some examples are below.

She had her cat spayed. That tabby is hers.
They drove me in their car. Yes, the Audi is theirs.
You want me to come to your house? Which one is yours?
Who left this here? Whose magazine is this?

Pronouns take apostrophes only when forming contractions (more on this below). NO EXCEPTIONS. If you see who's, it means "who is" or "who has" or "who was." It's means "it is" or "it has" or "it was."

Bridging the gaps
Omitted letters and contractions

Apostrophes play another important role: as a placeholder. They stand in for omitted letters in a single word or combined words (a.k.a. contractions). Some examples are below.

Ma'am = madam
'cause = because
don't = do not
could've = could have
who's = who is / who was / who has
they're = they are / they were

Oddball plurals
a soon-to-be extinct exception

It was once the rule that numbers, letters, abbreviations and acronyms always took an apostrophe and s in their plural forms. For example: In the 1940's, C.P.A.'s minded their P's and Q's. This "rule" is currently in flux and appears to be headed for extinction.

Most of the newest style manuals have eliminated this practice. MLA 7th edition section 3.2.7g says "Do not use an apostrophe to form the plural of an abbreviation or a number." The Associated Press applies the oddball apostrophe plural rule only to single letters (for example, M's), while numbers and abbreviations/acronyms go without the curl.

The trend seems to be apostrophe minimalism. So go ahead and write it like this: "In the 1940s, CPAs minded their Ps and Qs." The Modern Language Association will back you all the way.


Which of these areas trip you up most?

*this is a revised post from 2009.

Read More

Semi-serious punctuation help (a cleverly disguised rant)

Dear Editor-on-call:

When is it best to use a semicolon instead of a period?

Yours truly,
Pausing for effect
(aka Shannon O'Donnell at Book Dreaming)

========

Dear Pausing,

True confession time. I despise semicolons.

When I became managing editor of a scholarly journal two years ago, I discovered an ugly secret. Academics use semicolons by the barrel-full to string together the most convoluted run-on sentences imaginable. Spend a few days with my copy-editing pile and you'll understand how hateful this problem truly is.

You might say I've been unduly influenced to see semicolons as the enemies of clear, brisk writing. They strike me as stuffy and really belonging to the realm of nonfiction. I rarely see them in genre fiction, except to clarify items in a series when there's already a comma in one or more of the items.

For example:
Buttercup packed her lacy, pink day dress; a floor-length, green velvet gown, which had once been Mother's; six chemises; and three sets of gloves.

Indeed, semicolons can replace the "and" in a compound sentence, when you want more separation than a comma, but less than a period. These instances should be rare.

For example:
Ginny's wand sailed out of her hand; it landed right in Neville's pudding.

Am I out of line here, hating on semis? Feel free to defend your precious punctuation in the comments.

Read More

Editor on call:** ending apostrophe abuse

Apostrophe anxiety in the digital age
Roots of the problem--the demise of gatekeepers

For generations, the humble apostrophe has been quietly helping us keep track of who owns what and acting as a placeholder for omitted letters. Yet more and more I see this little curl popping up where it never belonged: in plural nouns and possessive pronouns. How did this error become so widespread?

I think it is fair to blame the democratization of design and publication. Prior to the digital age, we had a layer of gatekeepers--sign shops, publishing companies, well-trained secretaries--whose reputations depended upon accuracy. They made sure errors never hit the public eye. Now that anyone with a computer can create documents and signage, the gatekeepers that would have caught and repaired errors are largely bypassed.

The digital age also encourages reliance on technology over human knowledge. Many times spell check won't help you use apostrophes correctly, however; who's might be a correct spelling, but it doesn't mean the same thing as whose. Grammar checkers will flag similar sound-alike errors sometimes. But even these tools will get hung up on unusual plurals, such as the one in An Abundance of Katherines.

Finally, I blame Dan Quayle's very public gaffe in 1992--insisting at a spelling bee that potato is spelled potatoe--for creating heightened anxiety about spelling rules for words ending in vowel sounds. Slapping on an apostrophe has become the strange default. (I imagine the inner monologue goes like this: "Is it tacos or tacoes? Oh, heck, I'll just write taco's, everyone will understand.") Words ending in Y trip folks up, too. While pony becomes ponies and contingency becomes contingencies, joy does not become joies, but joys. Apostrophes seem to act as duct tape when these anxieties surface--a good-enough quick fix for those in a hurry. My advice for handling thus particular anxiety: When in doubt, look it up. Merriam-Webster online has an easy-to-use interface.

Thanks for bearing with my analytical rant. Here's the goods you really came for: a reliable guide to using, not abusing, our humble friend the apostrophe.

Mine! Mine!
Apostrophes and possessives

To indicate ownership, add an apostrophe and s to singular nouns (no matter what the ending consonant) and plurals that don't end in s. Some examples are below.

John's box
Yeats's poems
Inez's marimba
Children's menu
Men's restroom

With plural nouns ending in s, indicate ownership by adding an apostrophe alone. Be sure that the plural is correctly formed first. (When in doubt, look it up.) Errors creep in with names especially. Names ending in y simply take an s. Names ending with s, sh, ch, x or z take an es when made plural. Some examples are below.

Girls' first win
Grants' party
O'Reillys' bar
Collinses' house

Beware the masqueraders! PROnouns, those handy stand-in words that keep us from sounding incredibly redundant, do not use apostrophes in their possessive forms. Some examples are below.

She had her cat spayed. That tabby is hers.
They drove me in their car. Yes, the Audi is theirs.
You want me to come to your house? Which one is yours?
Who left this here? Whose magazine is this?

Pronouns take apostrophes only when forming contractions (more on this below). NO EXCEPTIONS. If you see who's, it means "who is" or "who has" or "who was." It's means "it is" or "it has" or "it was."

Bridging the gaps
Omitted letters and contractions

Apostrophes play another important role: as a placeholder. They stand in for omitted letters in a single word or combined words (a.k.a. contractions). Some examples are below.

Ma'am = madam
'cause = because
don't = do not
could've = could have
who's = who is / who was / who has
they're = they are / they were

Oddball plurals
a soon-to-be extinct exception

It was once the rule that numbers, letters, abbreviations and acronyms always took an apostrophe and s in their plural forms. For example: In the 1940's, C.P.A.'s minded their P's and Q's. This "rule" is currently in flux and appears to be headed for extinction.

Most of the newest style manuals have eliminated this practice. MLA 7th edition section 3.2.7g says "Do not use an apostrophe to form the plural of an abbreviation or a number." The Associated Press applies the oddball apostrophe plural rule only to single letters (for example, M's), while numbers and abbreviations/acronyms go without the curl.

The trend seems to be apostrophe minimalism. So go ahead and write it like this: "In the 1940s, CPAs minded their Ps and Qs." The Modern Language Association will back you all the way.

**A brief disclaimer
I am not a grammarian. I'm just a workaday editor with degrees in English and journalism who has been copy editing professionally since 1991. All the advice I give above came from reliable grammar manuals. If you think I got it wrong at any point, please let me know in the comments or at lonexylophone (at) yahoo (dot) com.

Read More