Sometimes people underrate the
importance of punctuation. If your work is full of errors, you risk
not only confusing and/or annoying your readers, but you also risk
losing credibility. Punctuation errors are bad enough in a novel or
a short story, but if you're writing non-fiction, your readers may
think, “Hmm...if this guy can't put apostrophes in the right place,
can I really trust his expertise in the subject matter?” This is
something you do not want your readers to think.
Recently I read an independently
published non-fiction book plagued with so many apostrophe errors
that the author unwittingly inspired today's post. Here are the main
types of errors he made, over and over again:
1) Wrong: His mothers fears
Right: His mother's fears
If you're showing possession, you need
that apostrophe. Otherwise is looks like a plural. This would be
doubly confusing if it were “His mothers fear” because that reads
like he has two mothers and they both fear something. It's not until
the next word that the reader is jarred into the intended meaning:
“His mothers fear was made reality.” Oh...his mother (or
mothers, we're still not sure because it's not punctuated correctly)
had a fear and it came true.
2) Wrong: Humanities primal urges.
Also would be wrong: Humanitie's primal urges.
Right: Humanity's primal urges
When a word ends in y, and you
want to make it PLURAL, you change the y to
i and add es.
But
when you want to make it POSSESSIVE, you do not change the y.
Just add apostrophe s. The city's streets are clean. Not many
cities are so clean.
3)
Wrong: A process which Heracles labours are forcing him to undergo.
Right:
Heracles' labours... OR Heracles's labours
The
correct way to punctuate names and singular nouns that end in s
is debatable, and depends on which style guide you use, though
nowadays most lean toward adding the apostrophe s instead of just the
apostrophe. Charles's camera. The bus's back tires. But of course,
if the noun is plural, you just add the apostrophe. The girls'
playhouse (there are at least two girls).
4)
Wrong: The sea's were troubled.
Right: The seas were troubled.
It's a plural noun. The apostrophe has
no place here. Exceptions may be made (depending on which style
guide you follow) for acronyms, years, and other strange cases. Some
people write CD's, DVD's, etc.
when they mean multiple CDs or DVDs. They write the 1980's
when referring to the decade, instead of the 1980s. I
personally think this is imprecise and potentially confusing, but
it's common and often considered acceptable. You should use
an apostrophe in plurals of some one-letter words that would be
confused with other words if you didn't add the apostrophe. So, for
example, you can write “I replaced all the a's with i's in my
secret message.” These a's and i's are plural, not possessive, and
would generally not use apostrophes, but if you don't add the
apostrophe, you get this: “I replaced all the as with is in the
secret message.”
5)
Wrong: Helios see's all things.
Right:
Helios sees all things.
Never
put an apostrophe s
in
a verb UNLESS you're making a contraction with is
or
has (he's
tired, she's singing, Mary's awake, the cat's never caught a bird
before, the world's been going downhill..) Otherwise, just don't do
it. Please. A regular s
is
sufficient. Helios sees. Helios hears. Helios knows.
6)
Wrong: It's muscles flexed.
Right:
Its muscles flexed.
This
is a very, very, very common error. It's
is a contraction of it
and
is (It's
hot in here).
Its
is the possessive of it
(This
book is complicated. Its appendix of characters is twenty-seven
pages long.). I think most of us know this, but it's easy to make
the error in haste or with bad typing and then not catch it later
because we know what it's supposed
to
say, so our brain skips over the error. If you're worried about it,
there's a long, boring solution: use the find feature on your word
processor to hunt down every example of both it's
and
its in
your manuscript and make sure they're all right. While you're at it,
check you're and
your.
A
few other things to remember:
“My
parents' house is old” means that the house belongs to both your
parents.
“My
parent's house is old “ means that the house belongs to one of your
parents (and for some reason you call this person your parent instead
of your mom or dad.)
Let's
is
not the same as lets
Let's
go swimming this afternoon. Mom never lets me go swimming.
Who's
is not the same as whose
Who's
going to cook tonight? Whose carrots are these?
They're
is
not the same as their
They're
going to cook tonight? But their carrots are old.
You're
is
not the same as your
You're
invited. Your invitation got lost in the mail.
We're
is not the same as were
and he's
is not the same as
his.
Yes, these last ones should be obvious, but I've seen the mistakes
in work people felt ready to publish.
The
problem with these types of errors is that spell checker will never
find them. Your grammar checker won't help a lot either. You have a
sacred duty to your readers to find somebody (yes, an actual person,
and preferably several of them) that will be able to hunt down and
correct errors like this after you do your best to correct them
yourself.
Happy
hunting.
For
more punctuation help, see my other posts:
Avoiding Common Punctuation Errors Pt 3: Commas with Participial Phrases
Avoiding Common Punctuation Errors Pt 5: Adjectives with Commas
Avoiding Common Punctuation Errors Pt 6: Hyphens in Compound Adjectives
Avoiding Common Punctuation Errors Pt 6: Hyphens in Compound Adjectives
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