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The apostrophe ( ' or ’) is a punctuation mark, and sometimes a diacritical mark, in languages that use the Latin alphabet and some other alphabets. In English, the apostrophe is used for three basic purposes: The marking of the omission of one or more letters, e.g. the contraction of "do not" to "don't".
Apostrophe ( Greek ἀποστροφή, apostrophé, "turning away"; the final e being sounded) [ 1] is an exclamatory figure of speech. [ 2] It occurs when a speaker breaks off from addressing the audience (e.g., in a play) and directs speech to a third party such as an opposing litigant or some other individual, sometimes absent from the scene.
Apologetic apostrophe. The 'apologetic'[ 1] or parochial apostrophe[ 2] is the distinctive use of apostrophes in some Modern Scots spelling. [ 3] Apologetic apostrophes generally occurred where a consonant exists in the Standard English cognate, as in a' (all), gi'e (give) and wi' (with). The practice, unknown in Older Scots, was introduced in ...
The Associated Press Stylebook says “use only an apostrophe” for singular proper names ending in S: Dickens’ novels, Hercules’ labors, Jesus’ life. But not everyone agrees. Debate about ...
An apostrophe is not an accessory. Here are examples of how and when to use an apostrophe—and when you definitely shouldn't. The post Here’s When You Should Use an Apostrophe appeared first on ...
The aim is to promote clarity, cohesion, and consistency, and to make the encyclopedia easier and more intuitive to use. For numbers, dates, and similar items in Wikipedia article titles, see the "Naming conventions (numbers and dates)" guideline. Where this manual gives options, maintain consistency within an article unless there is a good ...
An abbreviation may be a shortened form of a word with a trailing period. For example: etcetera is usually abbreviated etc. and abbreviation is sometimes abbreviated abbr., abbrv., or abbrev.. But sometimes the trailing period is not used for such shortened forms. A contraction is an abbreviation formed by replacing letters with an apostrophe.
The apostrophe (ʼ) is not usually considered part of the English alphabet nor used as a diacritic, even in loanwords. But it is used for two important purposes in written English: to mark the "possessive" [o] and to mark contracted words. Current standards require its use for both purposes.