The
Well Bred Sentence
(Table
of Contents)
The Well Bred
Sentence
An
Intensive Study of Sentence Construction and Punctuation
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The apostrophe is a single raised comma with a top curl []. It performs two quite different functions in English:
The genitive apostrophe indicates that certain relationships exist between a noun and another noun. (See the discussion in Chapter 2: `genitive-case nouns'.) Placing the genitive apostrophe The apostrophe after the plural form of a noun indicates that the noun names several participants and that those participants are in genitive relationship with another named participant:
The apostrophe after the singular form of the noun indicates that one participant is in genitive relationship with another noun:
EXERCISE 21 of Exercise and Answer Notes is appropriate here. We are used to the idea that the apostrophe expresses genitive relationships, so it comes as a surprise that its, the neuter pronoun that expresses a genitive relationship with a noun, does not contain an apostrophe:
One must simply remember that there is an apostrophe in i-t-s only to contract it is to it's:
The other pronouns that express genitive relationships are:
The only word that stands for a name, can express a genitive relationship and does so with an apostrophe is ones:
Noting that `one' behaves just like any noun, some say it is not a pronoun at all: It is a noun. Genitive pronouns and their homophones There are words that sound like genitives but are in fact not genitives. They must be carefully distinguished from genitives because their meanings and their spellings are completely different from their genitive homophones:
EXERCISE 22 of Exercises and Answers Notes is appropriate here. The apostrophe as an eccentric genitive Genitive relationships are marked as usual in surnames: the Smiths dog. Oddly enough, this practice is sometimes suspended when a surname ends in s. The relationship between people called `Jones' and the dog they own is often expressed thus: the Jones dog. This is hardly fair: Why make light of someone's surname just because it happens to end with an s? Surely this is the Jones's due: the Joness dog . On the other hand, convention requires that we place only an apostrophe after the s of antique names that end in s: Euripides beard, Hercules strength . Another eccentric usage is in expressions that seem to mark a genitive relationship twice:
The genitive relationship my daughter is embedded into the genitive relationship `daughters friend'. The structure of ... s allows these two genitives to be expressed in one sentence. When using this double-genitive structure the writer must be careful to place the apostrophe where meaning requires that it be placed. Note the difference in meaning when the apostrophe of the previous sentence is placed after the s :
It is perfectly correct to do without this double genitive when the genitive relationship is between nouns:
But we cannot avoid it when the genitive relationship is between a noun and a pronoun:
It is wide-spread malpractice to place an apostrophe before or after the s in a numerical noun that is not in a genitive relationship. This misplaced apostrophe is as offensive there as it is a word where it has no role. It is easy to distinguish numerical nouns in genitive relationships from those not in that relationship:
The condition that applies to the correct use of the apostrophe with initials is the same as the condition that applies to its use with numerical nouns: Use the apostrophe only when the initials express a genitive relationship with another noun. If not, not. Again, it is easy to distinguish an initial that is in a genitive relationship with another noun from one that is not:
Genitive nouns, pronouns and -ing nouns (This discussion has already occurred in the Chapter `The Simple Sentence'.) There is a genitive relationship between two nouns when one is the performer and the other the performance. In the next sentence John is the performer and decision his performance:
The same genitive relationship holds when the performer is named by a pronoun. The naming is done by one of the genitive pronoun forms: my, your, his, hers, their, its:
Writers have no difficulty with this item of syntax. But it is remarkable how things go off the rails when the noun with which a pronoun is in genitive relationship is an -ing word. It is all too often that one hears and reads expressions like:
Once the -ing noun appears people seem to forget that there is a genitive relationship between performer and performance. Or, not realising that words ending in -ing can be nouns, they do not know they are dealing with a genitive relationship of pronoun and noun. That -ing nouns exist should be clear in every writer's mind.
No reasonable case can be made for avoiding the genitive noun or pronoun. This is so because a notable power of making meaning is lost to our language if we abuse the genitive pronoun out of existence. For example, we say something significantly different in:
and in:
The illiteracy `John leaving annoyed us' used in an attempt to say that `Johns leaving annoyed us' is just that: an illiteracy. Given the foregoing point, it follows that the appropriate pronoun to represent the genitive construction Johns is the genitive pronoun his, not the objective pronoun him nor the subjective pronoun he. No writer can afford to be cavalier about this syntactic issue. Shortfalls in its application are eyesores that repel esteem. The apostrophe marks the fact that a word has been shortened or `contracted:
or that two words have been conjoined or `contracted for brevity:
Not all abbreviations are contractions There is a worrying practice - greengrocers are particularly guilty of it - of abbreviating words and marking the abbreviation with an apostrophe: caulis (cauliflowers). It is as well to remember that an abbreviation is not necessarily a contraction. An abbreviation is sometimes a `diminutive, or `pet name'. The s that attaches to them simply marks the plural forms of such pet names: boyos, ciggies, caulies. The apostrophe is quite as wrong in the plural forms of pet names as it is in the plural form of any noun that does not have a genitive relationship with another. EXERCISE 23 of Exercise and Answer Notes is appropriate here. |