Apostrophe Now

William Schmalz, FAIA, CSI,

Author, "The Architects Guide to Writing"; Principal at Perkins and Will

Published Oct 8, 2016

People react differently to poor punctuation. Some take a casual, “whatever” attitude, willing to accept a writer’s using a semicolon instead of a colon, or a hyphen instead of a dash, with merely a shrug. On the other end of the spectrum are the militant sticklers who, on seeing the same mistakes, will shriek, “The horror! The horror!” Our problem as writers is that we can never be sure at which end of the spectrum our potential clients or employers happen to reside. A simple misused punctuation mark could result in our proposal being tossed in the trash or our emailed resume deleted.

Punctuation is strictly a writing thing. We don’t need it when we talk. We have other tools—pauses, vocal tones, pronunciation, facial expressions, and hand gestures—to convey the subtleties of meaning that words alone can’t express. Punctuation marks are merely conventions developed by manuscript scribes and early printers to show on the page all those nonverbal ways we use to express ourselves [1]. Today, we have 16 standard punctuation marks [2], each with one or more acceptable functions that, for the most part, can be performed by only that mark [3].

Take the apostrophe, for example. Using apostrophes ought to be simple. After all, they have only four functions, two of which are rare and none of which can be performed by any other punctuation mark, yet they cause much confusion—and even controversy—as to how they should be used, and their misuse can horrify the punctuation sticklers.

Making Singular Words Plural

Let’s first make one thing clear: Apostrophes are almost never used to make a word plural. That includes initialisms (RFIs, not RFI’s), words as objects (dos and don’ts, not do’s and don’ts, and no ifs, ands, or buts, not no if’s, and’s, or but’s), and decades (the 1990s, not the 1990’s). The exception? Only in the rare situation where not using an apostrophe would cause confusion, such as with lower-case letters of the alphabet (mind your p’s and q’s).

Adding Endings to Strange Verbs

Adding endings to most English verbs to show tenses is generally simple: for example, design becomes designs, designed, and designing. But a few abbreviations and initialisms we commonly use as verbs don’t take endings so easily; in that case, your options are to spell the entire word out and use the conventional endings (always an option, but not always the best one) or use an apostrophe for attaching the endings. Examples: okayed or OK’d, specified or spec’d, and knocked out or KO’d [4].

Making Contractions

The general rule for making contractions is simple: The apostrophe shows where letters have been removed (can’t for cannot or wouldn’t for would not). The only tricky thing is when a contraction starts with an apostrophe. For example, if you wanted to write ’tis a core ’n’ shell package (and I’m not suggesting you should) or the ’90s, you have to fool your computer to make that initial apostrophe. Type two single quotation marks in succession (‘’), then delete the first one and you have your apostrophe (’).

(Speaking of contractions, should they be used in professional writing? For most documents, if not using a common contraction (e.g., can’t, isn’t, won’t, doesn’t) will make the writing sound stilted and unnatural, then by all means use the contraction. Avoid colloquial contractions that may sound okay in speech, but look clumsy on the page (e.g., that’ll, where’d, how’ll) [5]. Never use contractions for contracts, drawing notations, or specifications.)

Making Words Possessive

Most of the time, the rules for making possessives are straightforward: For singular nouns, add an apostrophe plus s to the end of the word (architect’s). For plural nouns, add just an apostrophe (architects’). Simple. So let’s get to the weird and controversial stuff.

Plural nouns that don’t end in s (women, children) are handled as though they are singular nouns (women’s, children’s). That means the room label on the drawings should read “WOMEN’S RESTROOM,” not “WOMENS RESTROOM.” (And not “FEMALE RESTROOM.” The rooms themselves don’t have genders.)
When two or more people jointly own something, only the second name gets the ’s (Tom and Jerry’s design of the tower). When two or more people individually own the same kind of thing, add ’s to both names (Tom’s and Jerry’s designs of the towers).
Possessive pronouns never use apostrophes (the world is hers, yours, his, its, ours, and theirs) [5].

And finally, to the degree that punctuation can ever be controversial, let’s end with a punctuation controversy: How do you make a singular proper noun that ends with s possessive? For example, would the freeways of Los Angeles be Los Angeles’ freeways or Los Angeles’s freeways? Would the urban renewal plans of Robert Moses be Robert Moses’ plans or Robert Moses’s plans? Would the yellow rose of Texas be Texas’ rose or Texas’s rose? Unfortunately, the major style guides don’t agree, and even different editions of the same style guide may not agree. In its most recent edition, the comprehensive Chicago Manual of Style has revised its earlier advice and now recommends all singular possessive proper nouns to get an extra s after the apostrophe. I like this no-exceptions approach (and prefer how it looks on the page), and now use it for my own writing (which means I prefer Los Angeles’s freeways, Robert Moses’s plans, and Texas’s rose). However, if you prefer Los Angeles’, Moses’, and Texas’, you can find a style guide to back you up. As for the militant punctuation sticklers, you can’t know which approach they prefer, but if you’re at least consistent in either adding or not adding the extra s, then even if they disagree with you, they may not be horrified.

Footnotes:

[1] We also have a few other tricks we can use, such as italic fonts for normal emphasis and bold fonts for more forceful emphasis.

[2] Apostrophes (’), brackets ([]), colons (:), commas (,), double quotation marks (“”), ellipses (…), em-dashes (—), en-dashes (–), exclamation marks (!), hyphens (-), parentheses (()), periods (.), question marks (?), semicolons (;), single quotation marks (‘’), and slashes (/). Some language experts dismiss the slash as a legitimate punctuation mark (even though of the 16 it’s one of the oldest), while others now include bullets. Of the 16, only the two dashes lack keys on the standard American keyboard, which instead gives keys to these things: |, ^, and {}.

[3] Yes, I know that some functions can be handled by more than one punctuation mark; that’s why I said “for the most part.” For example, parenthetical words or phrases can be set within parentheses, commas, or em-dashes; it’s usually the writer’s choice which is used. But that’s an exception to the general rule.

[4] The Merriam-Webster Dictionary also suggests specced, which looks odd to me, and instead of spec’ing suggests spec’cing, which looks as if it would be pronounced “speksing” rather than “spekking.”

[5] Unless you’re writing dialogue for that novel you’re working on.

[6] Only careful proofreading, and not your spell checker, will catch an erroneous it’s or you’re. I recently saw this in a wall panel manufacturer’s published brochure: “You’re protection is impenetrable.”

Did you like this article? Check out these other LinkedIn articles by the same writer:

“‘Are You Good enough?’: The treatment of Professional Ethics in Popular Narrative Cinema”: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/treatment-professional-ethics-popular-narrative-william-schmalz-faia?published=t

“The Bridge on the Mae Klong: When Structures Represent More than Themselves”: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/bridge-mae-klong-when-structures-represent-more-than-schmalz-faia?trk=pulse_spock-articles

“Drunken Grammarians, Ancient Aliens, and the Wishful Mood of English”: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/drunken-grammarians-ancient-aliens-wishful-mood-william-schmalz-faia?trk=pulse_spock-articles

“Eating the Food Our Food Eats”: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/eating-food-our-eats-william-schmalz-faia?trk=pulse_spock-articles

“Facing the Blank Screen: Tricks to Avoid Writer’s Block”: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/facing-blank-screen-tricks-avoid-writers-block-william-schmalz-faia?trk=pulse_spock-articles

“Finding Your Inner Editor, or How to Grow a Second Pair of Eyes”: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/finding-your-inner-editor-how-grow-second-pair-eyes-schmalz-faia?trk=pulse_spock-articles

“The Football Field of Time”: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/football-field-time-william-schmalz-faia?trk=pulse_spock-articles

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“A Lesson from the Convention”: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/lesson-from-convention-william-schmalz-faia?trk=pulse_spock-articles

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