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 ...
herisson's user avatar
  • 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'...
user2474226's user avatar
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 ...
R.M.'s user avatar
  • 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 ...
Sven Yargs's user avatar
  • 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 ...
ElmerCat's user avatar
  • 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 ...
Sven Yargs's user avatar
  • 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 ...
T.E.D.'s user avatar
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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
mikeagg's user avatar
  • 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 ...
Mari-Lou A's user avatar
  • 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 ...
Sven Yargs's user avatar
  • 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 ...
Brian Hooper's user avatar
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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.
Nuclear Hoagie's user avatar
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 ...
Decapitated Soul's user avatar
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 ...
tchrist's user avatar
  • 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 ...
herisson's user avatar
  • 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 ...
Hot Licks's user avatar
  • 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 ...
Maverick's user avatar
  • 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 ...
Peter Shor 's user avatar
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 ...
tchrist's user avatar
  • 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 ...
bookmanu's user avatar
  • 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 ...
R Mac's user avatar
  • 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 ...
stampedunder's user avatar
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 ...
Arm the good guys in America's user avatar
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 ...
Decapitated Soul's user avatar
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, ...
Michael Harvey's user avatar
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 ...
Draconis's user avatar
  • 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 ...
Mari-Lou A's user avatar
  • 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 ...
herisson's user avatar
  • 77.8k

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