Tham khảo tài liệu 'nghĩa từ phức tạp 7', ngoại ngữ, anh ngữ phổ thông phục vụ nhu cầu học tập, nghiên cứu và làm việc hiệu quả | apostrophes APOSTROPHES First let s all join in a hearty curse of the grammarians who inserted the wretched apostrophe into possessives in the first place. It was all a mistake. Our ancestors used to write Johns hat meaning the hat of John without the slightest ambiguity. However some time in the Renaissance certain scholars decided that the simple s of possession must have been formed out of a contraction of the more proper John his hat. Since in English we mark contractions with an apostrophe they did so and we were stuck with the stupid John s hat. Their error can be a handy reminder though if you re not sure whether a noun ending in s should be followed by an apostrophe ask yourself whether you could plausibly substitute his or her for the s. The exception to this pattern is personal pronouns indicating possession like his hers and its. For more on this point see its it s. Get this straight once and for all when the s is added to a word simply to make it a plural no apostrophe is used except in expressions where letters or numerals are treated like words like mind your P s and Q s and learn your ABC s . Apostrophes are also used to indicate omitted letters in real contractions do not becomes don t. Why can t we all agree to do away with the wretched apostrophe Because its two uses contraction and possession have people so thoroughly confused that they are always putting in apostrophes where they don t belong in simple plurals cucumber s for sale and family names when they are referred to collectively the Smith s . The practice of putting improper apostrophes in family names on signs in front yards is an endless source of confusion. The Brown s is just plain wrong. If you wanted to suggest the residence of the Browns you would have to write Browns with the apostrophe after the S which is there to indicate a plural number not as an indication of possession. If you simply want to indicate that a family named Brown lives here the sign out front should read simply .
