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I was explaining it's vs. its to someone the other day, and I said "None of the pronouns (his, hers, theirs, yours, its, whose, ...) has an apostrophe." Later I got to wondering whether that was really true, and sure enough fairly quickly found one that does: one's, as in "One's memory isn't what it used to be."

Are there other pronouns that use an apostrophe?

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Actually, the possessive it's used to have an apostrophe not very long ago. See Etymonline: "at first commonly written it's, a spelling retained by some to the beginning of the 19c". Wiktionary has cites from 1603 and 1751. – RegDwighт♦ Dec 15 '11 at 12:10
@RegDwightѬſ道: The number of apostrophes in common English usage seems to decrease over time, as with hyphens. I'm talking about current usage. – T.J. Crowder Dec 15 '11 at 14:06
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I don't share you're impression that the number of apostrophe's in common English decrease's over time. – RegDwighт♦ Dec 15 '11 at 16:01
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@RegDwightѬſ道: (LOL!) Just read Shakespeare, or look at just about any other early modern English text. Capitals and apostrophes all over the place. :-) – T.J. Crowder Dec 15 '11 at 16:15

1 Answer

up vote 10 down vote accepted

Everybody's, everyone's, somebody's, someone's, anybody's, anyone's, nobody's, no one's.

EDIT:

And also the reciprocal pronouns: each other's, one another's.

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+1, and the informal y'all's from wiki; btw, these pronouns are not considered personal or are they? – Unreason Dec 15 '11 at 9:16
Ah! Of course, I should have got there. :-) – T.J. Crowder Dec 15 '11 at 9:38
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@Unreason: No, they're indefinite pronouns. – Barrie England Dec 15 '11 at 9:49
It's the one or body at the end that requires the apostrophe; they're still nouns, though they're only hanging on by a thread. The first part of these compounds (some, every, any) are just quantifiers. Latin used to do similar things with quisquis and quoque. General rule: whatever part gets the genitive stuck on it determines the apostrophiliation. – John Lawler Dec 15 '11 at 16:03
@JohnLawler: Very good point. (Mind you, pronouns are nouns as well; did you mean they're still common nouns? I'm not up on my noun terminology -- get me past pronoun and proper noun and I start to wobble a bit.) – T.J. Crowder Dec 15 '11 at 16:20
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