Apostrophes 

History

·        “As a mark of the possessive case, the apostrophe has an unusual history.  In Old English, the endings of nouns changed according to the noun’s grammatical function—a noun used as a subject, for example, had a different ending from one used as a direct object.  By the fourteenth century, Middle English had dropped most of this complicated system, yet possessive and plural endings remained: Haroldes sword was still used to mean “the sword of Harold.”  Then in the sixteenth century, scholars concluded that the ending –es and its variants were actually contractions of his.  Believing that Haroldes sword meant “Harold his sword,” they began using an apostrophe instead of the e: Harold’s sword.

·        Even though this theory was later discredited, the possessive ending retained the apostrophe because it was a useful way to distinguish between possessive and plural forms of writing.  Today we use the apostrophe primarily to signal possessive case, contractions and other omissions of words and letters, and certain plural forms.”

Source: Page 493.  The St. Martin’s Handbook.  Third Edition by Andrea Lundsford and Robert Connors.  New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1995.

Figure of Speech

·        Apostrophe (Greek ἀποστροφή, apostrophé, "turning away"; the final e being sounded) is a exclamatory rhetorical figure of speech, when a talker or writer breaks off and directs speech to an imaginary person or abstract quality or idea. In dramatic works and poetry, it is often introduced by the word "O" (not to be confused with the exclamation "oh").

·        It is related to personification, although in apostrophe, objects or abstractions are implied to have certain human qualities (such as understanding) by the very fact that the speaker is addressing them as he would a person in his presence.

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apostrophe_(figure_of_speech)

Eats, Shoots and Leaves

 “The English language first picked up the apostrophe in the 16^th century.  The word in Greek means ‘turning away’, and hence ‘omission’ or ‘elision’.  In classical texts, it was used to mark dropped letters, as in t’cius for ‘tertius’; and when English printers adopted it, this was still its only function” (37).

 “At some point in the 17^th century, however, printers started to intrude the apostrophe before the ‘s’ in singular possessive cases (‘the girl’s dress’) and from then on quite frankly the whole thing has spiraled into madness.  In the 18^th century, printers started to put it after plural possessives as well (‘the girls’ dresses’). (38)

“...Oxford Companion to English Literature: ‘There never was a golden age in which the rules for the possessive apostrophe were clear-cut and known, understood and followed by most educated people…” (39)

Consider: “Giant Kid’s Playground.” (41)

“…the ‘O’ in Irish names is an anglicisation of ‘ua’, meaning grandson” (45)

The following appears on page 55 and 56:

“Current guides to punctuation (including the ultimate authority, Fowler’s Modern English Usage) state that with modern names ending in ‘s’ (including biblical names, and any foreign name with an unpronounced final ‘s’), the ‘s’ is required after the apostrophe:

Keats’s poems

Philippa Jones’s book

  St. James’s Square

  Alexander Dumas’s The Three Muskeeteers

With names from the ancient world, it is not:

Archimedes’ screw

Archilles’ heel

If the name ends in an ‘iz’ sound, an exception is made:

Bridges’ score

Moses’ tables

[Texas’ laws]

And an exception is always made for Jesus:

Jesus’ disciples

Source: Eats, Shoots & Leaves  by Lynne Truss (Penguin, 2003)

Last updated 26 August 2008