Apostrophes and quotation marks
Anchor (Master): Nunberg, The Linguistics of Punctuation (1990)
Intuition [Beginner]
Two punctuation marks handle the jobs of showing ownership, shortening words, and quoting speech.
Apostrophes (') have two jobs:
Possession -- showing that something belongs to someone:
- "The dog's bone" (the bone belongs to the dog)
- "Sarah's book" (the book belongs to Sarah)
- "The students' project" (the project of the students)
Contractions -- showing that letters have been removed:
- "don't" = "do not" (the "o" in "not" is removed)
- "it's" = "it is" (the "i" in "is" is removed)
- "they're" = "they are"
Quotation marks (" " or ' ') have two jobs:
Direct speech -- showing exactly what someone said:
- She said, "I will be there at noon."
Titles of short works -- articles, poems, songs, episodes:
- I read the article "Climate Change and the Future" in today's paper.
Common traps:
| Wrong | Right | Why |
|---|---|---|
| "The dog wagged it's tail" | "The dog wagged its tail" | "its" = possession, no apostrophe (like "his," "her") |
| "Your going to be late" | "You're going to be late" | "you're" = "you are" |
| "Their here already" | "They're here already" | "they're" = "they are" |
| "I saw three dog's" | "I saw three dogs" | Plurals do NOT take apostrophes |
The key rule: apostrophes never make plurals. "Apple's for sale" is always wrong (unless the apple owns something).
Visual [Beginner]
APOSTROPHE -- POSSESSION:
Singular: the dog's bone (dog + 's)
^^
Plural ending in s: the dogs' bone (dogs + ')
^^
Plural not ending in s: the children's toys (children + 's)
^^^
Singular ending in s: James's book OR James' book (both accepted)
^^^^ ^^^
APOSTROPHE -- CONTRACTIONS:
it's = it is / it has its = possession (no apostrophe)
^^ ^^
you're = you are your = possession
^^^^^^ ^^^^
they're = they are their = possession
^^^^^^^ ^^^^^
there = location who's = who is / who has
^^^^^ ^^^^^
whose = possession
QUOTATION MARKS:
DIRECT SPEECH: She said, "I am leaving now."
^ ^
NARRATED SPEECH (NO quotes): She said that she was leaving.
TITLES (short works): He sang "Bohemian Rhapsody" at the talent show.
^ ^
TITLES (long works, italics instead): I read *The Great Gatsby* in class.
PUNCTUATION WITH QUOTES (American style):
Period/comma INSIDE: She said, "Hello."
^
Question mark OUTSIDE (if not part of quote):
Did she say "Hello"?
^
Question mark INSIDE (if part of quote):
She asked, "Are you coming?"
^
Worked example [Beginner]
1. Add the correct apostrophe: "The boys bicycle was stolen"
- One boy owns the bicycle.
- "The boy's bicycle was stolen."
2. Add the correct apostrophe: "The students homework was late"
- Multiple students' homework.
- "The students' homework was late." (plural possessive)
3. Choose the correct word: "The dog lost (its / it's) collar"
- We need the possessive form = "its" (no apostrophe).
- "The dog lost its collar."
4. Choose the correct word: "(Your / You're) going to need an umbrella"
- "You are going to need" = contraction = "You're."
- "You're going to need an umbrella."
5. Punctuate: She said I will be there soon
- Direct speech needs quotation marks and a comma.
- She said, "I will be there soon."
6. Punctuate: He asked did you finish the report
- Direct question inside quotation marks.
- He asked, "Did you finish the report?"
Check your understanding [Beginner]
Formal definition [Intermediate+]
Apostrophe. The apostrophe serves two functions in standard English:
- Possessive marker. The apostrophe + s ('s) marks the possessive (genitive) case of nouns. The rules:
| Noun type | Possessive form | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Singular noun | add 's | the dog's bone |
| Plural noun ending in s | add ' only | the dogs' bone |
| Plural noun not ending in s | add 's | the children's toys |
| Singular proper noun ending in s | add 's or ' | James's book / James' book |
The choice between "James's" and "James'" is a matter of style guide. Chicago Manual of Style and MLA recommend 's. AP Style recommends the ' alone.
- Contraction marker. The apostrophe marks the omission of one or more letters or numbers:
- don't (do not), can't (cannot), it's (it is), '99 (1999), rock 'n' roll
Quotation marks. Quotation marks enclose direct speech, titles of short works, and words used metalinguistically. The two systems:
| Style | Primary quotes | Nested quotes | Region |
|---|---|---|---|
| American | "..." | '...' | US |
| British | '...' | "..." | UK (traditional) |
Punctuation placement with quotation marks. The American convention places periods and commas inside closing quotation marks regardless of whether they belong to the quoted material. The British convention places them according to logical relevance (inside if part of the quote, outside if not). Question marks and exclamation points follow the same logic in both systems: inside if part of the quoted material, outside if part of the surrounding sentence.
Key concepts [Intermediate+]
The its/it's distinction. "Its" is the possessive form of "it" (analogous to "his," "her," "their" -- none of which take apostrophes). "It's" is always a contraction of "it is" or "it has." This is the single most common apostrophe error in English. The confusion arises because the regular possessive pattern for nouns uses 's, but possessive pronouns (my, your, his, her, its, our, their) never do.
The greengrocer's apostrophe. Using an apostrophe to form a plural ("apple's," "CD's," "1980's") is called the greengrocer's apostrophe (from its prevalence on produce signs). It is non-standard in formal writing. Some style guides accept the apostrophe for clarity with certain plurals (letters: "mind your p's and q's"; abbreviations with periods: "Ph.D.'s"), but regular plurals of nouns never take apostrophes.
Possessive vs. descriptive (attributive) noun phrases. Not every noun before another noun is possessive. "A teachers' union" (the union belongs to teachers) uses the possessive. "A teachers college" (a college for teachers, not owned by them) uses the attributive form without an apostrophe. The distinction is semantic, not syntactic, and many such cases are disputed.
Scare quotes. Quotation marks around a word to signal distance, irony, or skepticism ("The so-called "expert" gave terrible advice") are called scare quotes. They are a pragmatic device with no syntactic function. Overused, they read as snide or non-committal. When a word is used in a non-literal or contested sense, italics or the phrase so-called often accomplish the same purpose more cleanly.
Single quotation marks for titles and specialized uses. Beyond nesting, single quotation marks appear in certain fields: philosophy uses them for mentioning words (the word 'dog' has three letters), linguistics uses them for glosses and meanings, and British publishing traditionally uses them as primary quotation marks.
Linguistic theory [Master]
The apostrophe as orthographic marker of morphosyntactic category. The apostrophe is unusual among punctuation marks in that it participates directly in the morphological system of English. The possessive 's is a clitic -- a morpheme that attaches phonologically to the last word of a noun phrase rather than to the head noun alone. "The King of England's crown" shows 's attaching to "England," not "King." This distinguishes the English possessive from a simple suffix.
The contraction apostrophe marks a phonological reduction with syntactic consequences. Contractions like "don't" and "can't" are not merely shortened forms -- they have distinct syntactic distributions. "Aren't I?" is the standard tag question for first person singular, but *"Amn't I?" is ungrammatical in standard English, and "Am I not?" is formal. The contraction has become the primary form.
Quotation marks and reported speech. The distinction between direct and indirect speech is fundamental to the grammar of quotation. Direct speech ("She said, 'I'm leaving'") presents a verbatim record and requires quotation marks. Indirect speech ("She said that she was leaving") integrates the reported clause into the syntax of the matrix sentence (note the shift from first to third person, present to past tense) and takes no quotation marks.
Quotation marks create a mention context rather than a use context, in the sense of the use-mention distinction from philosophy of language. The quoted words are presented as linguistic objects rather than being deployed for their referential content. This is why scare quotes work: they signal that a word is being mentioned (with ironic distance) rather than straightforwardly used.
The evolution of quotation practices. Corpus studies show that quotation practices have changed significantly over the past century. Direct quotation has become more common in journalism and narrative prose, partly due to the influence of interview-based reporting. The conventions for punctuation placement with quotation marks remain a point of divergence between American and British English, reflecting different theories of whether punctuation belongs to the quoted material or the enclosing sentence.
Historical context [Master]
The apostrophe was introduced into English in the 16th century, originally to mark elision -- the omission of a sound. Its earliest uses were for contractions: 'tis (it is), o'er (over), ne'er (never). The use of the apostrophe for the possessive developed later, in the 17th century, by analogy with the contraction: the possessive ending -es (Old English -es) was reinterpreted as e's*, with the apostrophe marking an "omitted" letter. This is why the possessive apostrophe exists: it is historically an elision marker on a suffix that has since been further reduced.
The standardization of apostrophe rules occurred in the 18th century. Before then, usage was inconsistent. Shakespeare used apostrophes for elision but not consistently for possession. Robert Lowth's A Short Introduction to English Grammar (1762) helped regularize the rules, establishing the distinction between singular possessive ('s) and plural possessive (').
The "greengrocer's apostrophe" is not a modern invention. Historical corpora show that apostrophes were used in plurals as early as the 17th century, particularly before s in foreign-derived words and abbreviations. The prescriptive prohibition against plural apostrophes solidified in the 19th century.
Quotation marks originated as marginal marks (called diple, from the Greek for "double") placed in the margins of manuscripts to highlight important passages, especially citations of scripture. By the late medieval period, the marks migrated into the text itself. The modern paired quotation mark ("...") developed in 16th-century English printing. Single quotation marks were originally the primary form in English; double quotation marks became primary in American English during the 19th century, while British English retained single quotes as primary until the late 20th century, when American conventions increasingly influenced British publishing.
The American convention of placing periods and commas inside quotation marks (regardless of logical affiliation) derives from the aesthetics of typesetting. In the era of handset type, a period or comma next to a quotation mark could create an ugly gap or damage the fragile pieces of type. Placing the punctuation inside the quotes was a practical solution that became a rigid convention.
Bibliography [Master]
- Huddleston, R. & Pullum, G.K. (2002). The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language. Cambridge University Press.
- Little, G. (1986). The orthography of the English genitive. English Studies, 67(5), 397-409.
- Lowth, R. (1762). A Short Introduction to English Grammar. A. Millar.
- Nunberg, G. (1990). The Linguistics of Punctuation. CSLI.
- Parkes, M. (1993). Pause and Effect: An Introduction to the History of Punctuation in the West. University of California Press.
- Truss, L. (2003). Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation. Profile Books.