Do You Have Apostrophe Apathy?
The apostrophe is a single punctuation mark that you might have seen around. In case you aren't familiar with it, and many are not, and even if you are familiar with it, it looks this way: '
The apostrophe is also known as the single quotation mark, or the single quote, because as you see above it consists of but one of two possible identical marks. When both occur together, of course, they are called quotation marks. One mark is an apostrophe, but two marks are not double apostrophes; they are still quotation marks. Dang, I had the words right yesterday but could not write them down. Not very write-minded of me, was it?
The apostrophe is used for two purposes: To indicate possession and omission. What is posssessed is the subject of another page; what is omitted is one or more letters from a word or words, at which a contraction occurs, much as your cat's claws might retract into a soft, furry paw. Examples of contraction, some of which also provide more information, should you please:
You are
Whenever
They are
There's not much more to say about apostrophes, that I can think of. Maybe your questions will point out some other verbiage I need to speak.
