英语语法：115 Apostrophe Catastrophe (Part One)

Grammar Girl here.

Today's topic is apostrophes.

When I was in second grade, I lost a spelling bee because I misspelled the word its. I put an apostrophe in when I shouldn't have, and it was a very traumatic moment in my young life. So when listeners including Katy from Australia, Kristi from Washington, D.C., Amy, and Jon wrote in asking me to talk about proper apostrophe usage, I had a flicker¹ of self-doubt.  But I think this lesson is burned into my mind precisely² because of my past misdeeds, and although I can't change my past, I feel the next best thing would be to save all of you from similar apostrophe-induced horrors.

Apostrophes have two main uses in the English language: they stand in for something that's missing, and they can be used to make a word possessive.

Apostrophes first showed up in the 1500s as a way to indicate omissions³. Today, the most common place to find this kind of apostrophe is in contractions⁴ such as can't (for can not), that's (for that is), and it's (for it is*), but they can also be used in fun ways. If you're writing fiction, you might use apostrophes to eliminate letters to formulate⁵ a character's dialect; for example, "I saw 'em talkin' yonder," with apostrophes to indicate that the speaker said 'em instead of them (t-h-e-m), and talkin' instead of talking (t-a-l-k-i-n-g).

It's no wonder that people are confused about apostrophes, because new uses were introduced in the 1600s and again in the 1700s (1), and it wasn't until the mid-1800s that people even tried to set down firm rules (2).

One major new use for the apostrophe was to indicate possession. For example,  the aardvark's pencil, where there is an apostrophe s at the end of aardvark, means that the pencil belongs to the aardvark. It does not mean the plural⁶ of aardvark, and it does not mean "The aardvark is pencil."

An interesting side note is that it doesn't seem so strange that an apostrophe s is used to make words possessive once you realize that in Old English it was common to make words possessive by adding es to the end. For example, the possessive of fox would have been foxes, which was the same as the plural. I assume that caused confusion, and someone suggested replacing the e with an apostrophe to make fox's in the possessive case. So apostrophe s for the possessive case was initially⁷ meant to show that the e was missing, and then the idea caught on and everyone eventually forgot all about the missing e.

Now, normally, I would assume that most people understand apostrophe basics and move on, but there are too many examples to the contrary for me to ignore them.

 

1 flicker   

vi./n.闪烁，摇曳，闪现

参考例句：

• There was a flicker of lights coming from the abandoned house.这所废弃的房屋中有灯光闪烁。
• At first,the flame may be a small flicker,barely shining.开始时，光辉可能是微弱地忽隐忽现，几乎并不灿烂。

2 precisely   

adv.恰好，正好，精确地，细致地

参考例句：

• It's precisely that sort of slick sales-talk that I mistrust.我不相信的正是那种油腔滑调的推销宣传。
• The man adjusted very precisely.那个人调得很准。

3 omissions   

n.省略( omission的名词复数 )；删节；遗漏；略去或漏掉的事（或人）

参考例句：

• In spite of careful checking, there are still omissions. 饶这么细心核对，还是有遗漏。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》
• It has many omissions; even so, it is quite a useful reference book. 那本书有许多遗漏之处，即使如此，尚不失为一本有用的参考书。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》

4 contractions   

n.收缩( contraction的名词复数 )；缩减；缩略词；（分娩时）子宫收缩

参考例句：

• Contractions are much more common in speech than in writing. 缩略词在口语里比在书写中常见得多。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Muscle contractions are powered by the chemical adenosine triphosphate(ATP ). 肌肉收缩是由化学物质三磷酸腺苷(ATP)提供动力的。 来自辞典例句

5 formulate   

v.用公式表示；规划；设计；系统地阐述

参考例句：

• He took care to formulate his reply very clearly.他字斟句酌，清楚地做了回答。
• I was impressed by the way he could formulate his ideas.他陈述观点的方式让我印象深刻。

6 plural   

n.复数；复数形式；adj.复数的

参考例句：

• Most plural nouns in English end in's '.英语的复数名词多以s结尾。
• Here you should use plural pronoun.这里你应该用复数代词。

7 initially   

adv.最初，开始

参考例句：

• The ban was initially opposed by the US.这一禁令首先遭到美国的反对。
• Feathers initially developed from insect scales.羽毛最初由昆虫的翅瓣演化而来。