🎵 🎵🎵

Now this is a story all about how

My life got flipped, turned upside down. 

And I'd like to take a minute, just sit right there 

I’ll tell you how I developed a goddamn aneurism from seeing everyone’s wanton misuse of the apostrophe!

Fun fact: Will Smith and DJ Jazzy Jeff didn’t go with my version of the Fresh Prince theme song lyrics. That’s probably why the show bombed after a measly 148 generation-rearing episodes. But my ability to bear grudges isn’t why we’re here. We’re here to talk about the simple but apparently wildly misunderstood functions of the apostrophe.

There are three and ONLY three uses for the apostrophe: to show fucking possession, to form a fucking contraction, and to omit some fucking letters.

Use an apostrophe to show possession

When you need to demonstrate that someone or something has control, ownership, or possibly unlawful dominion of an object or feature, you superglue an apostrophe and an s onto the end of the word. 

Examples:

John’s pandemic-induced anxiety is different than his regular anxiety.

Are we all just going to continue not talking about humanity’s perpetual insistence on inciting our own extinction?

What if the possessive word already ends with an s?

Depends on who you ask. Official style guides (AP and Chicago) differ on whether to add an apostrophe and another s or simply just add the apostrophe. If you’re writing for a company that has its own internal style guide, it may dictate which approach you take. If you’re just a commoner who’s free from the bondage of style-guide oppression—it’s up to you. People will have opinions on the matter but neither option is technically wrong.

I prefer the simple, clean look of just adding an apostrophe, but you do you.

Examples:

The Jones’ dog shits on my lawn every morning, so I shit on their driveway every night. Fair is fair.

The Jones’s dog shits on my lawn every morning, so I shit on their driveway every night. Fair is fair.

Use an apostrophe to form a contraction

When you want to combine two words into a single, shorter word because we’re in the middle of a drought and you don’t want to be wasteful, chuck an apostrophe between them and hack off a letter or two to form a contraction.

Examples:

We’re not a species that’s built for the long haul.

You’re a cheery son of a bitch, aren’t you?

Use an apostrophe to intentionally omit letters

When you just can’t be bothered to gurgle out another goddamn letter, just slap an apostrophe wherever you feel like giving up and call it a day!

Examples:

The FBI is goin’ through my trash can again. Good thing I microwaved all my hard drives.

“Keep ‘em comin’,” I said to the bartender who quickly informed me that they were an Apple employee and I was sitting at the Genius Bar.

How not to use an apostrophe: creating a plural noun

If you learn nothing else here today, let it be this: apostrophes should never be used to create a plural noun. That’s it. Full stop. End of explanation.

Example:

“Hi, we’re the Johnson’s!”

You’re the Johnson’s what? Friends? Neighbors? I’m confused. Do they own you? Do I need to call the authorities? Because that shit is, like, super illegal. Oh, you mean you ARE Mr. and Mrs. Johnson, the ones who abandoned individual personalities along with a basic understanding of punctuation? Condolences on both accounts.

Is there anything you’re leaving out?

Nope. 

Are you sure?

Don’t do this. You’re gonna make me do it, aren’t you?

Come on, give it!

God, you’re such a dick.

Okay. Fuck. Yes. Technically, you can use an apostrophe to create a plural noun. But just because you can doesn’t mean you should. It should only be done when you have no other choice and not including the apostrophe would cause confusion or otherwise bork up your sentence.

Example:

Make sure to cross your t’s and dot your i’s.

Why use apostrophes here? Because not apostrophizing the i would make it look like I was telling you to “dot your is” and that’s not a thing. Why apostrophize the t as well? For solidarity. No single letters left behind! “Well, can’t I just rewrite the sentence to prevent this confusing communication clusterfuck?” Yes. And you should always exhaust every grammatical option possible to avoid this entire situation before resorting to using an apostrophe to pluralize your nouns.

Example:

Make sure to cross every t and dot every i.

There. Happy now?