87
votes
Accepted
Why were Scottish & Irish names once rendered with apostrophes instead of "Mac" or "Mc"
While you may have seen M’ with an apostrophe, look carefully: you might have instead seen M‘ with the character used for an opening quotation mark.
The difference is small but significant. According ...
- 77.8k
65
votes
Accepted
Why is the apostrophe positioned differently in "ones' complement" than "two's complement"?
Donald Knuth, that doyen of computer science, says in Art of Computer Programming, Vol 2.:
Detail-oriented readers and copy-editors should notice the position of
the apostrophe in terms like "two'...
- 966
30
votes
Accepted
Apostrophe for indicating possessive. How do I convince my professor?
As few people are addressing the '"more scientific™" sources' bit of the question, it should be pointed out that there are a number of English style guides out there, practically all of which should ...
- 1,420
26
votes
Accepted
Is an apostrophe with a decade (e.g. 1920’s) generally considered “incorrect”?
My answer focuses on the header question about decades—which is the question that most readers will probably expect to find answers to here. With regard to decades expressed in numerals rather than ...
- 158k
25
votes
Accepted
Is possessive's apostrophe dispensable in any case?
There are a few limited cases for which an apostrophe is not used to indicate possession. For example, if you're referring to something belonging to it or her, the correct form is its or hers, with no ...
- 1,065
24
votes
Apostrophe for indicating possessive. How do I convince my professor?
The strongest endorsement that I could find from a UK English source in favor of using 's after singular nouns of any kind to indicate possession is this brief treatment from The Oxford Guide to Style ...
- 158k
21
votes
Apostrophe for indicating possessive. How do I convince my professor?
A piece of advice here from someone who did a CS Master's thesis himself:
You don't. You write it the way they want it written. Consider it like a house style guide. The rules in style guides aren't ...
- 18.4k
19
votes
Accepted
“other’s lives” vs. “others’ lives”
Since you are talking about multiple others ("...the lives of others"), then the apostrophe comes after the s.
having an impact on others' lives
- 3,628
18
votes
Apostrophe for indicating possessive. How do I convince my professor?
From Charles Darwin's Origin of Species
OR THE PRESERVATION OF FAVOURED RACES IN THE STRUGGLE FOR LIFE.
From the First Edition, 1859
One of the most remarkable features in our domesticated races is ...
- 88.7k
15
votes
Which singular names ending in “s” form possessives with only a bare apostrophe?
Bryan Garner, Garner's Modern American Usage, second edition (2003) offers the following discussion of how to handle possessive proper names ending in -s:
POSSESSIVES. A. Singular Possessives. To ...
- 158k
15
votes
"Brazilian's army's ammo supply": is it right to use apostrophes on two consecutive nouns like this?
It would depend on what you meant. If you mean the Brazilian army was short of ammunition, then you would write the Brazilian Army's ammo supply is low.
But if you were referring to an army that is ...
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14
votes
Accepted
Else's or Elses' or Elses
It's "else's". Here, someone else is a singular compound noun, and the novel belongs to them. The possessive apostrophe is used.
- 12k
14
votes
Why were Scottish & Irish names once rendered with apostrophes instead of "Mac" or "Mc"
It's a good question and I didn't have the answer so I asked it on r/AskLinguistics on Reddit and got a good answer. I'm going to quote it (with little changes):
The Victorians abbreviated things a ...
- 16.4k
13
votes
Possessive form for a surname ending with "z"
Spelling Possessives: A simple rule with zero exceptions
There is no special rule for surnames which does not also apply to common nouns.
For that matter, there is no special rule for singulars versus ...
- 133k
12
votes
Accepted
A plurality of nests of wasps
Danger! Wasp Nests!
No apostrophe in this case, because there is no possessive*. Here "Wasp" is an attributive noun, and therefore can be in the singular form even though there is more than one nest ...
- 77.8k
9
votes
What is the short form for 'little' ? Is it li'l or lil'?
Ngram shows li'l beating out lil' and li'l' since before 1900. (Note that you must press "Search lots of books" after clicking on the link.)
And since Lil is a very popular name (both as a first ...
- 27.3k
9
votes
Apostrophe for indicating possessive. How do I convince my professor?
Nobody's more standard than
Shakespeare, who says:
Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
Blow, blow, thou winter wind! Thou art not so unkind as man's ingratitude.
How sharper than a serpent's ...
- 2,269
8
votes
A unique case of capitalising mid-sentence and using apostrophe 's'
When you use a proper noun containing the as an adjective, you usually drop the. So you would say
former Roots member, Malik B,
and not "former The Roots member".
Similarly, even without a the ...
- 85.2k
8
votes
Do I add " ’s " after the number on a pope/king’s name? (e.g. Pope Paul VI’s)
The English apostrophe-s is not a case inflection the way you have in German or Russian, Latin or Greek. Rather it is a clitic that attaches to the end of the entire noun phrase, not merely to the ...
- 133k
8
votes
Master thesis, master's degree thesis or master degree thesis
https://ell.stackexchange.com/questions/24377/use-master-thesis-or-masters-thesis
"Grammatically speaking, master's thesis unequivocally means a thesis of a master. Master thesis can be read the same ...
- 6,528
8
votes
Accepted
Does a possessive still require an apostrophe when a noun has been omitted to avoid repetition?
In the example sentence, "Their understanding of the subject is as good as their masters," the actual thing being compared is the understanding of their masters. The sentence therefore requires a ...
- 3,337
7
votes
Accepted
Apostrophes in a list of people
If the boat is posssessed equally by the three, you only need put the apostrophe on the last person's name.
E.g., John, Jacob, and Mary's boat.
The possessive, in a list, on the last person shows ...
- 324
7
votes
Accepted
"The species/species'/species's survival..."
The online Chicago Manual of Style (both 16th and 17th editions) states:
When the singular form of a noun ending in s is the same as the plural (i.e., the plural is uninflected), the possessives of ...
6
votes
Accepted
What does "carry't" mean?
In Early Modern English, vowels that didn't represent any sound were often dropped and people indicated this omission by using an apostrophe.
It was mostly used in past tense and past participles when ...
- 16.4k
6
votes
Accepted
How do you punctuate what FFS expands to?
I have always written it as 'for fuck's sake' when I have needed to.
Definition of 'FFS'
in British English
slang
ABBREVIATION FOR the taboo expression 'for fuck's sake': used esp in social media, ...
- 12k
6
votes
Why no apostrophe in the possessive "it"?
It's purely conventional.
In linguistics, writing systems are usually considered a separate thing from the language itself—they tend to be deliberately constructed and taught, and can be deliberately ...
- 1,091
5
votes
Etymology of "let us" and "let's"
Why the apostrophe?
The brainchild of a Frenchman called Geoffroy Tory, the apostrophe was born in 1529 and adopted by British typographers in 1559. Originally, its use was to show a missing vowel ...
- 88.7k
5
votes
Is the possessive of "one" spelled "ones" or "one's"?
Indefinite pronouns like one and somebody: one's, somebody's
The possessive of the pronoun one is spelled one's. There are many types of pronouns. Unfortunately, people explaining the mnemonic for ...
- 77.8k
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