The apostrophe (, ) is a

punctuation Punctuation marks are marks indicating how a piece of writing, written text should be read (silently or aloud) and, consequently, understood. The oldest known examples of punctuation marks were found in the Mesha Stele from the 9th century BC, c ...

mark, and sometimes a

diacritic A diacritic (also diacritical mark, diacritical point, diacritical sign, or accent) is a glyph added to a letter or to a basic glyph. The term derives from the Ancient Greek (, "distinguishing"), from (, "to distinguish"). The word ''diacrit ...

al mark, in languages that use the

Latin alphabet The Latin alphabet, also known as the Roman alphabet, is the collection of letters originally used by the Ancient Rome, ancient Romans to write the Latin language. Largely unaltered except several letters splitting—i.e. from , and from � ...

and some other alphabets. In English, the apostrophe is used for two basic purposes: * The marking of the omission of one or more letters, e.g. the

contraction Contraction may refer to: Linguistics * Contraction (grammar), a shortened word * Poetic contraction, omission of letters for poetic reasons * Elision, omission of sounds ** Syncope (phonology), omission of sounds in a word * Synalepha, merged ...

of "do not" to "don't" * The marking of

possessive case A possessive or ktetic form (abbreviated or ; from ; ) is a word or grammatical construction indicating a relationship of possession in a broad sense. This can include strict ownership, or a number of other types of relation to a greater or les ...

of nouns (as in "the eagle's feathers", "in one month's time", "the twins' coats") It is also used in a few exceptional cases for the marking of plurals, e.g. "p's and q's" or

Oakland A's Oakland is a city in the East Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area in the U.S. state of California. It is the county seat and most populous city in Alameda County, California, Alameda County, with a population of 440,646 in 2020. A major We ...

. The same mark is used as a

single quotation mark Quotation marks are punctuation marks used in pairs in various writing systems to identify direct speech, a quotation, or a phrase. The pair consists of an opening quotation mark and a closing quotation mark, which may or may not be the sa ...

. It is also substituted informally for other marks for example instead of the

prime symbol The prime symbol , double prime symbol , triple prime symbol , and quadruple prime symbol are used to designate units and for other purposes in mathematics, science, linguistics and music. Although the characters differ little in appearance fr ...

to indicate the units of

foot The foot (: feet) is an anatomical structure found in many vertebrates. It is the terminal portion of a limb which bears weight and allows locomotion. In many animals with feet, the foot is an organ at the terminal part of the leg made up o ...

minutes of arc A minute of arc, arcminute (abbreviated as arcmin), arc minute, or minute arc, denoted by the symbol , is a unit of angular measurement equal to of a degree. Since one degree is of a turn, or complete rotation, one arcminute is of a tu ...

. The word ''apostrophe'' comes from the

Greek Greek may refer to: Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor of all kno ...

(hē apóstrophos rosōidía ' he accent ofturning away or elision'), through

Latin Latin ( or ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally spoken by the Latins (Italic tribe), Latins in Latium (now known as Lazio), the lower Tiber area aroun ...

and French.

Usage in English

Historical development

The apostrophe was first used by

Pietro Bembo Pietro Bembo, (; 20 May 1470 – 18 January 1547) was a Venetian scholar, poet, and literary theory, literary theorist who also was a member of the Knights Hospitaller and a cardinal of the Catholic Church. As an intellectual of the Italian Re ...

in his edition of '' De Aetna'' (1496). It was introduced into English in the 16th century in imitation of French practice.

French practice

Introduced by

Geoffroy Tory Geoffroy (or Geofroy) Tory (; in Bourges – before 14 October 1533 in Paris) was a French humanism, humanist and an engraver, best known for adding accents on letters in French. His life's work has heavily influenced French publishing to this ...

(1529), the apostrophe was used in place of a vowel letter to indicate

elision In linguistics, an elision or deletion is the omission of one or more sounds (such as a vowel, a consonant, or a whole syllable) in a word or phrase. However, these terms are also used to refer more narrowly to cases where two words are run to ...

(as in in place of ). It was also frequently used in place of a final "e" (which was still pronounced at the time) when it was elided before a vowel, as in . Modern French

orthography An orthography is a set of convention (norm), conventions for writing a language, including norms of spelling, punctuation, Word#Word boundaries, word boundaries, capitalization, hyphenation, and Emphasis (typography), emphasis. Most national ...

has restored the spelling .

Early English practice

From the 16th century, following French practice, the apostrophe was used when a vowel letter was omitted either because of incidental

("I'm" for "I am") or because the letter no longer represented a sound ("lov'd" for "loved").

English spelling English orthography comprises the set of rules used when writing the English language, allowing readers and writers to associate written graphemes with the sounds of spoken English, as well as other features of the language. English's orthograp ...

retained many

inflection In linguistic Morphology (linguistics), morphology, inflection (less commonly, inflexion) is a process of word formation in which a word is modified to express different grammatical category, grammatical categories such as grammatical tense, ...

s that were not pronounced as

syllable A syllable is a basic unit of organization within a sequence of speech sounds, such as within a word, typically defined by linguists as a ''nucleus'' (most often a vowel) with optional sounds before or after that nucleus (''margins'', which are ...

s, notably verb endings ("-est", "-eth", "-es", "-ed") and the noun ending "-es", which marked either plurals or possessives, also known as genitives . An apostrophe followed by "s" was often used to mark a plural; specifically, the ''

Oxford Companion ''Oxford Companions'' is a book series published by Oxford University Press Oxford University Press (OUP) is the publishing house of the University of Oxford. It is the largest university press in the world. Its first book was printed in Ox ...

to the English Language'' notes that:

Standardisation

The use of

has continued to the present day, but significant changes have been made to the

possessive A possessive or ktetic form (Glossing abbreviation, abbreviated or ; from ; ) is a word or grammatical construction indicating a relationship of possession (linguistics), possession in a broad sense. This can include strict ownership, or a numbe ...

and

plural In many languages, a plural (sometimes list of glossing abbreviations, abbreviated as pl., pl, , or ), is one of the values of the grammatical number, grammatical category of number. The plural of a noun typically denotes a quantity greater than ...

uses. By the 18th century, an apostrophe with the addition of an "s" was regularly used for all

singular Singular may refer to: * Singular, the grammatical number that denotes a unit quantity, as opposed to the plural and other forms * Singular or sounder, a group of boar, see List of animal names * Singular (band), a Thai jazz pop duo *'' Singula ...

forms, even when the letter "e" was not omitted (as in "the gate's height"). This was regarded as representing not the elision of the "e" in the "-e" or "-es" ending of the word being pluralized, but the elision of the "e" from the

Old English Old English ( or , or ), or Anglo-Saxon, is the earliest recorded form of the English language, spoken in England and southern and eastern Scotland in the Early Middle Ages. It developed from the languages brought to Great Britain by Anglo-S ...

genitive In grammar, the genitive case ( abbreviated ) is the grammatical case that marks a word, usually a noun, as modifying another word, also usually a noun—thus indicating an attributive relationship of one noun to the other noun. A genitive can ...

singular

"-es". The plural genitive did not use the "-es" inflection, and since many plural forms already consisted of the "-s" or "-es" ending, using the apostrophe in place of the elisioned "e" could lead to singular and plural possessives of a given word having the exact same spelling. The solution was to use an apostrophe after the

"s" (as in "girls' dresses"). However, this was not universally accepted until the mid-19th century. Plurals not ending in -s keep the -'s marker, such as "children's toys, the men's toilet", since there was no risk of ambiguity.

Possessive apostrophe

The apostrophe is used in English to indicate what is, for historical reasons, misleadingly called the

case in the English language. This case was called the

until the 18th century and, like the genitive case in other languages, expresses relationships other than

possession Possession may refer to: Law *Dependent territory, an area of land over which another country exercises sovereignty, but which does not have the full right of participation in that country's governance *Drug possession, a crime *Ownership *Pe ...

. For example, in the expressions "the school's headmaster", "the men's department", and "tomorrow's weather", the school does not own/possess the headmaster, men do not own/possess the department, and tomorrow does not/will not own the weather. In the words of

Merriam-Webster's Dictionary of English Usage ''Merriam-Webster's Dictionary of English Usage'' (MWDEU) is a usage dictionary published by Merriam-Webster, Inc., of Springfield, Massachusetts. It is currently available in a reprint edition (1994) or . (The 1989 edition did not include ''Mer ...

: This dictionary also cites a study that found that only 40% of the possessive forms were used to indicate actual possession. The modern spelling convention distinguishes possessive singular forms ("Bernadette's", "flower's", "glass's", "one's") from simple plural forms ("Bernadettes", "flowers", "glasses", "ones"), and both of those from possessive plural forms ("Bernadettes, "flowers, "glasses, "ones). For example, the word "glass's" is the singular possessive form of the noun "glass". The plural form of "glass" is "glasses" and the plural possessive form is, therefore, "glasses. One would therefore say "I drank the glass's contents" to indicate drinking from one glass, but "I drank the glasses' contents" after also drinking from another glass. For singular forms, the modern possessive or

inflection is a survival from certain genitive inflections in Old English, for which the apostrophe originally marked the loss of the old "e" (for example, became ). Its use for indicating plural "possessive" forms was not standard before the middle of the 19th century.

General principles for the possessive apostrophe

= Summary of rules for most situations

= * Possessive personal pronouns, serving as either noun-equivalents or adjective-equivalents, do not use an apostrophe, even when they end in "s". The complete list of those ending in the letter "s" or the corresponding sound or but not taking an apostrophe is "ours", "yours", "his", "hers", "its", "theirs", and "whose". * Other pronouns, singular nouns not ending in "s", and plural nouns not ending in "s" all take s" in the possessive: e.g., "someone's", "a cat's toys", "women's". * Plural nouns already ending in "s" take only an apostrophe after the pre-existing "s" to form the possessive: e.g., "three cats' toys".

= Basic rule (singular nouns)

= For most singular nouns the ending s" is added; e.g., "the cat's whiskers". *If a singular noun ends with an "s"-sound (spelled with "-s", "-se", for example), practice varies as to whether to add s" or the apostrophe alone. In many cases, both spoken and written forms differ between writers (see details

below Below may refer to: *Earth *Ground (disambiguation) *Soil *Floor * Bottom (disambiguation) *Less than *Temperatures below freezing *Hell or underworld People with the surname * Ernst von Below (1863–1955), German World War I general * Fred Belo ...

). * Acronyms and initialisms used as nouns (CD, DVD, NATO, RADAR, etc.) follow the same rules as singular nouns: e.g., "the TV's picture quality".

= Basic rule (plural nouns)

= When the noun is a normal plural, with an added "s", no extra "s" is added in the possessive, and it is pronounced accordingly; so "the neighbours' garden" (there is more than one neighbour owning the garden) is standard rather than "the neighbours's garden". * If the plural is not one that is formed by adding "s", an "s" is added for the possessive, after the apostrophe: "children's hats", "women's hairdresser", "some people's eyes" (but compare "some peoples' recent emergence into nationhood", where "peoples" is meant as the plural of the singular "people"). These principles are universally accepted. * A few English nouns have plurals that are not spelled with a final "s" but nevertheless end in an /s/ or a /z/ sound: "mice" (plural of "mouse"; also in compounds like "

dormouse A dormouse is a rodent of the family Gliridae (this family is also variously called Myoxidae or Muscardinidae by different taxonomists). Dormice are nocturnal animals found in Africa, Asia, and Europe. They are named for their long, dormant hibe ...

", "

titmouse ''Baeolophus'' is a genus of birds in the family Paridae, commonly called tits. Its members are known as titmouses or titmice. All the species are native to North America. In the past, most authorities retained ''Baeolophus'' as a subgenus w ...

"), "

dice A die (: dice, sometimes also used as ) is a small, throwable object with marked sides that can rest in multiple positions. Dice are used for generating random values, commonly as part of tabletop games, including dice games, board games, ro ...

" (when used as the plural of "die"), "pence" (a plural of "penny", with compounds like "sixpence" that now tend to be taken as singulars). In the absence of specific exceptional treatment in style guides, the possessives of these plurals are formed by adding an apostrophe and an "s" in the standard way: "seven titmice's tails were found", "the dice's last fall was a seven", "his few pence's value was not enough to buy bread". These would often be rephrased, where possible: "the last fall of the dice was a seven".

= Basic rule (compound nouns)

= Compound nouns have their singular possessives formed with an apostrophe and an added ''s'', in accordance with the rules given above: ''the Attorney-General's husband''; ''the

Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports is the name of a ceremonial post in the United Kingdom. The post dates from at least the 12th century, when the title was Keeper of the Coast, but it may be older. The Lord Warden was originally in charge of the ...

's prerogative''; ''this Minister for Justice's intervention''; ''her father-in-law's new wife''. *In such examples, the plurals are formed with an ''s'' that does not occur at the end: e.g., ''attorneys-general''. A problem therefore arises with the ''possessive'' plurals of these compounds. Sources that rule on the matter appear to favour the following forms, in which there is both an ''s'' added to form the plural, and a separate '' 's'' added for the possessive: ''the attorneys-general's husbands''; ''successive Ministers for Justice's interventions''; ''their fathers-in-law's new wives''. Because these constructions stretch the resources of punctuation beyond comfort, in practice they are normally reworded: ''interventions by successive Ministers for Justice''.

= Joint or separate possession

= For two nouns (or noun phrases) joined by ''and'', there are several ways of expressing possession, including: :1. marking of the last noun (e.g. "Jack and Jill's children") :2. marking of both nouns (e.g. "Jack's and Jill's children"). Some grammars make no distinction in meaning between the two forms. Some publishers' style guides, however, make a distinction, assigning the "segregatory" (or "distributive") meaning to the form "John's and Mary's" and the "combinatorial" (or "joint") meaning to the form "John and Mary's". A third alternative is a construction of the form "Jack's children and Jill's", which is always distributive, i.e. it designates the combined set of Jack's children and Jill's children. When a coordinate possessive construction has two personal pronouns, the normal possessive inflection is used, and there is no apostrophe (e.g., "his and her children"). The issue of the use of the apostrophe arises when the coordinate construction includes a noun (phrase) and a pronoun. In this case, the inflection of only the last item may sometimes be, at least marginally, acceptable ("you and your spouse's bank account"). The inflection of both is normally preferred (e.g. Jack's and your dogs), but there is a tendency to avoid this construction, too, in favour of a construction that does not use a coordinate possessive (e.g. by using "Jack's letters and yours"). Where a construction like "Jack's and your dogs" is used, the interpretation is usually "segregatory" (i.e. not joint possession).

= With other punctuation; compounds with pronouns

= If the word or compound includes, or ends with, a punctuation mark, an apostrophe and an ''s'' are still added in the usual way: "

Westward Ho! Westward Ho! is a seaside village near Bideford in Devon, England. The A39 road provides access from the towns of Barnstaple, Bideford, and Bude. It lies at the south end of Northam Burrows and faces westward into Bideford Bay, opposite Sau ...

's railway station"; "''Awaye!''s Paulette Whitten recorded Bob Wilson's story"; ''Washington, D.C.'s museums''. (assuming that the prevailing style requires full stops in ''D.C.''). *If the word or compound already includes a possessive apostrophe, a double possessive results: ''Tom's sisters' careers''; ''the head of marketing's husband's preference''; ''the master of foxhounds' best dog's death''. Many style guides, while allowing that these constructions are possible, advise rephrasing: ''the head of marketing's husband prefers that ...''. If an original apostrophe or apostrophe with ''s'' occurs at the end, it is left by itself to serve both purposes: ''Our employees are better paid than McDonald's employees''; ''Standard & Poor's indices are widely used'': the fixed forms of ''

McDonald's McDonald's Corporation, doing business as McDonald's, is an American Multinational corporation, multinational fast food chain store, chain. As of 2024, it is the second largest by number of locations in the world, behind only the Chinese ch ...

'' and ''

Standard & Poor's S&P Global Ratings (previously Standard & Poor's and informally known as S&P) is an American credit rating agency (CRA) and a division of S&P Global that publishes financial research and analysis on stocks, bonds, and commodities. S&P is co ...

'' already include possessive apostrophes. For similar cases involving geographical names, see

. * Similarly, the possessives of all phrases whose wording is fixed are formed in the same way: **" Us and Thems inclusion on the album ''

The Dark Side of the Moon ''The Dark Side of the Moon'' is the eighth studio album by the English rock band Pink Floyd, released on 1 March 1973, by Capitol Records in the US and on 16 March 1973, by Harvest Records in the UK. Developed during live performances before ...

'' **

You Am I You Am I are an Australian power pop band, fronted by its lead singer-songwriter and guitarist, Tim Rogers. They formed in December 1989 and are the first Australian band to have released three successive albums that have each debuted at the ...

's latest CD ** The 69'ers' drummer, Tom Callaghan (only the second apostrophe is possessive) ** '' His 'n' Hers'''s first track is called "Joyriders". ** Was ''

She She or S.H.E. may refer to: Language * She (pronoun), the third person singular, feminine, nominative case pronoun in modern English Places * She County, Anhui ** She Prefecture, 589-1121 * She County, Hebei * She River, or Sheshui, Hubei * ...

'' success greater, or ''

King Solomon's Mines ''King Solomon's Mines'' is an 1885 popular fiction, popular novel by the English Victorian literature, Victorian adventure writer and fable, fabulist Sir H. Rider Haggard. Published by Cassell and Company, it tells of an expedition through an ...

''? :For complications with foreign phrases and titles, see

= Time, money, and similar

= An apostrophe is used in time and money references in constructions such as ''one hour's respite'', ''two weeks' holiday'', ''a dollar's worth'', ''five pounds' worth'', ''one mile's drive from here''. This is like an ordinary possessive use. For example, ''one hour's respite'' means ''a respite of one hour'' (exactly as ''the cat's whiskers'' means ''the whiskers of the cat'').

= Possessive pronouns and adjectives

= No apostrophe is used in the following possessive pronouns and adjectives: ''hers'', ''his'', ''its'', ''my'', ''mine'', ''ours'', ''theirs'', ''whose'', and ''yours''. All other possessive pronouns do end with an apostrophe and an ''s''. In singular forms, the apostrophe comes first, e.g. ''one's''; ''everyone's''; ''somebody's'', ''nobody else's'', etc., while the apostrophe follows the ''s'' in plural forms as with nouns: ''the others' complaints''. The possessive of ''it'' was originally ''it's'', in contrast to the modern ''its''. The apostrophe was dropped by the early 19th century. Authorities are now unanimous that ''

it's English auxiliary verbs are a small set of English verbs, which include the English modal auxiliary verbs and a few others. Although the Auxiliary verb, auxiliary verbs of English are widely believed to lack inherent semantic meaning and instead ...

'' can be only a contraction of ''it is'' or ''it has''. Despite this, using ''it's'' as a possessive pronoun is a common grammatical error in present times.

= Importance for disambiguation

= Each of these four phrases (listed in

Steven Pinker Steven Arthur Pinker (born September 18, 1954) is a Canadian-American cognitive psychology, cognitive psychologist, psycholinguistics, psycholinguist, popular science author, and public intellectual. He is an advocate of evolutionary psycholo ...

's ''

The Language Instinct ''The Language Instinct: How the Mind Creates Language'' is a 1994 book by Steven Pinker, written for a general audience. Pinker argues that humans are born with an innate capacity for language. He deals sympathetically with Noam Chomsky's claim t ...

'') has a distinct meaning: *My sister's friend's investment ''(the investment belonging to a friend of my sister)'' *My sister's friends' investment ''(the investment belonging to several friends of my sister)'' *My sisters' friend's investment ''(the investment belonging to a friend of several of my sisters)'' *My sisters' friends' investment ''(the investment belonging to several friends of several of my sisters)''

Kingsley Amis Sir Kingsley William Amis (16 April 1922 – 22 October 1995) was an English novelist, poet, critic and teacher. He wrote more than 20 novels, six volumes of poetry, a memoir, short stories, radio and television scripts, and works of social crit ...

, on being challenged to produce a sentence whose meaning depended on a possessive apostrophe, came up with: *Those things over there are my husband's. (''Those things over there belong to my husband.'') *Those things over there are my husbands'. (''Those things over there belong to several husbands of mine.'') *Those things over there are my husbands. (''I'm married to those men over there.'')

Singular nouns ending with an "s" or "z" sound

Some singular nouns are pronounced with a

sibilant Sibilants (from 'hissing') are fricative and affricate consonants of higher amplitude and pitch, made by directing a stream of air with the tongue towards the teeth. Examples of sibilants are the consonants at the beginning of the English w ...

sound at the end: /s/ or /z/. The spelling of these ends with ''-s'', ''-se'', ''-z'', ''-ze'', ''-ce'', ''-x'', or ''-xe''. Most respected authorities recommend that practically all singular nouns, including those ending with a sibilant sound, have possessive forms with an extra ''s'' after the apostrophe so that the spelling reflects the underlying pronunciation. Examples include

Oxford University Press Oxford University Press (OUP) is the publishing house of the University of Oxford. It is the largest university press in the world. Its first book was printed in Oxford in 1478, with the Press officially granted the legal right to print books ...

, the

Modern Language Association The Modern Language Association of America, often referred to as the Modern Language Association (MLA), is widely considered the principal professional association in the United States for scholars of language and literature. The MLA aims to "str ...

, the

BBC The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is a British public service broadcaster headquartered at Broadcasting House in London, England. Originally established in 1922 as the British Broadcasting Company, it evolved into its current sta ...

and ''

The Economist ''The Economist'' is a British newspaper published weekly in printed magazine format and daily on Electronic publishing, digital platforms. It publishes stories on topics that include economics, business, geopolitics, technology and culture. M ...

''. Such authorities demand possessive singulars like these: ''

Bridget Jones's Diary ''Bridget Jones's Diary'' is a 2001 romantic comedy film directed by Sharon Maguire from a screenplay by Helen Fielding, Andrew Davies and Richard Curtis. It is based on the 1996 novel of the same name by Fielding, which was itself a loose ...

''; ''Tony Adams's friend; my boss's job; the US's economy''. Rules that modify or extend the standard principle have included the following: *If the singular possessive is difficult or awkward to pronounce with an added sibilant, do not add an extra ''s''; these exceptions are supported by the ''

Yahoo! Yahoo (, styled yahoo''!'' in its logo) is an American web portal that provides the search engine Yahoo Search and related services including My Yahoo, Yahoo Mail, Yahoo News, Yahoo Finance, Yahoo Sports, y!entertainment, yahoo!life, and its a ...

Style Guide'', and '' The American Heritage Book of English Usage''. Such sources permit possessive singulars like these: ''Socrates' later suggestion''; or ''Achilles' heel'' if that is how the pronunciation is intended. The style guides of ''

'' and ''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in Manchester in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'' and changed its name in 1959, followed by a move to London. Along with its sister paper, ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardi ...

'' omit the extra s in this case. *Some style guides advise that Classical, biblical, and similar names ending in a sibilant, especially if they are

polysyllabic A syllable is a basic unit of organization within a sequence of speech sounds, such as within a word, typically defined by linguists as a ''nucleus'' (most often a vowel) with optional sounds before or after that nucleus (''margins'', which are ...

, should not take an added ''s'' in the possessive; among sources giving exceptions of this kind are ''

The Times ''The Times'' is a British Newspaper#Daily, daily Newspaper#National, national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its modern name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its si ...

'' and ''The Elements of Style'', which make general stipulations, and

Vanderbilt University Vanderbilt University (informally Vandy or VU) is a private university, private research university in Nashville, Tennessee, United States. Founded in 1873, it was named in honor of shipping and railroad magnate Cornelius Vanderbilt, who provide ...

, which mentions only ''

Moses In Abrahamic religions, Moses was the Hebrews, Hebrew prophet who led the Israelites out of slavery in the The Exodus, Exodus from ancient Egypt, Egypt. He is considered the most important Prophets in Judaism, prophet in Judaism and Samaritani ...

'' and ''Jesus''. As a particular case, ''Jesus''' – referred to as "an accepted liturgical archaism" in ''

Hart's Rules ''Hart's Rules'' is the oldest continuously updated style guide in the English language, providing advice on topics such as punctuation, citation, and typography. Printer and biographer Horace Hart first issued the work in 1893 for the comp ...

'' – is commonly written instead of ''Jesus's''. * There are also some entrenched uses, for example ''

St James's Park St James's Park is a urban park in the City of Westminster, central London. A Royal Park, it is at the southernmost end of the St James's area, which was named after a once isolated medieval hospital dedicated to St James the Less, now the ...

'' (in London) (but the Newcastle stadium displays its name spelled ''

St James' Park St James' Park is a Association football, football stadium in Newcastle upon Tyne, England. It is the home of Newcastle United F.C., Newcastle United. With a seating capacity of 52,305, it is the List of football stadiums in England, 8th la ...

''), ''

St James's Palace St James's Palace is the most senior royal palace in London, England. The palace gives its name to the Court of St James's, which is the monarch's royal court, and is located in the City of Westminster. Although no longer the principal residence ...

'' (and ''the

Court of St James's The Court of St James's serves as the official royal court for the Sovereign of the United Kingdom. The court formally receives all ambassadors accredited to the United Kingdom. Likewise, ambassadors representing the United Kingdom are formally ...

''), ''

St. James's Hospital St. James's Hospital ''Confirms spelling of name as "James's" and Irish name'' () is a teaching hospital in Dublin, Republic of Ireland, Ireland. Its academic partner is Trinity College Dublin. It is managed by Dublin Midlands Hospital Group. ...

'' (in Dublin), ''King James's School'', Knaresborough and ''King James's School'', Almondbury (but there is no genitive at all in ''St James Park'' (Exeter) or ''St. James Park'' (Bronx); nor is there one in ''the

King James Bible The King James Version (KJV), also the King James Bible (KJB) and the Authorized Version (AV), is an Early Modern English translation of the Christian Bible for the Church of England, which was commissioned in 1604 and published in 1611, by ...

'' since, like the ''

Hebrew Bible The Hebrew Bible or Tanakh (;"Tanach"
. '' proper nouns A proper noun is a noun that identifies a single entity and is used to refer to that entity (''Africa''; ''Jupiter''; ''Sarah''; ''Walmart'') as distinguished from a common noun, which is a noun that refers to a class of entities (''continent, pl ...

ending with an "s", but not in words ending with other sibilants ("z" and "x"). The 15th edition of ''

The Chicago Manual of Style ''The Chicago Manual of Style'' (''CMOS'') is a style guide for American English published since 1906 by the University of Chicago Press. Its 18 editions (the most recent in 2024) have prescribed writing and citation styles widely used in publ ...

'' had recommended the traditional practice, which included providing for several exceptions to accommodate spoken usage such as the omission of the extra ''s'' after a polysyllabic word ending in a sibilant, but the 16th edition no longer recommends omitting the possessive "s". Similar examples of notable names ending in an ''s'' that are often given a possessive apostrophe with no additional ''s'' include ''Dickens'' and ''Williams''. There is often a policy of leaving off the additional ''s'' on any such name, but this can prove problematic when specific names are contradictory (for example, ''

'' in

Newcastle Newcastle usually refers to: *Newcastle upon Tyne, a city and metropolitan borough in Tyne and Wear, England, United Kingdom *Newcastle-under-Lyme, a town in Staffordshire, England, United Kingdom *Newcastle, New South Wales, a metropolitan area ...

he football groundand the area of ''

'' in London). However, debate has been going on regarding the punctuation of St James' Park (Newcastle) for some time, unlike St James's Park (London) which is the less contentious version. For more details on practice with geographic names, see the relevant section

. Some writers like to reflect standard spoken practice in cases like these with ''sake'': ''for convenience' sake'', ''for goodness' sake'', ''for appearance' sake'', ''for compromise' sake'', etc. This punctuation is preferred in major style guides. Others prefer to add '''s'': ''for convenience's sake''. Still others prefer to omit the apostrophe when there is an ''s'' sound before ''sake'': ''for morality's sake'', but ''for convenience sake''.

Nouns ending with silent ''s'', ''x'', or ''z''

The English possessive of French nouns ending in a silent ''s'', ''x'', or ''z'' is addressed by various style guides. Certainly a sibilant is pronounced in examples like ''Descartes's'' and ''Dumas's''; the question addressed here is whether ''s'' needs to be added. Similar examples with ''x'' or ''z'': s main ingredient is truffle''; ''His 's loss went unnoticed''; ''"Verreaux('s) eagle, a large, predominantly black eagle, ''Aquila verreauxi'',..."'' (

OED The ''Oxford English Dictionary'' (''OED'') is the principal historical dictionary of the English language, published by Oxford University Press (OUP), a University of Oxford publishing house. The dictionary, which published its first editio ...

, entry for "Verreaux", with silent ''x''; see

Verreaux's eagle Verreaux's eagle (''Aquila verreauxii'') is a large, mostly African, bird of prey. It is also called the black eagle, especially in southern Africa, not to be confused with the black eagle (''Ictinaetus malayensis'') of south and southeast Asia. ...

); in each of these some writers might omit the added ''s''. The same principles and residual uncertainties apply with "naturalised" English words, like ''Illinois'' and ''Arkansas''. For possessive ''plurals'' of words ending in a silent ''x'', ''z'' or ''s'', the few authorities that address the issue at all typically call for an added ''s'' and suggest that the apostrophe precede the ''s'': ''The Loucheux's homeland is in the Yukon''; ''Compare the two Dumas's literary achievements''. The possessive of a cited French title with a silent plural ending is uncertain: "'s long and complicated publication history", but "' singular effect was 'exotic primitive' ..." (with nearby sibilants ''-ce-'' in ''noces'' and ''s-'' in ''singular''). Compare treatment of other titles,

above Above may refer to: *Above (artist) Tavar Zawacki (b. 1981, California) is a Polish, Portuguese - American abstract artist and internationally recognized visual artist based in Berlin, Germany. From 1996 to 2016, he created work under the ...

. Guides typically seek a principle that will yield uniformity, even for foreign words that fit awkwardly with standard English punctuation.

Possessives in geographic names

Place names in the United States do not use the possessive apostrophe on federal maps and signs. The

United States Board on Geographic Names The United States Board on Geographic Names (BGN) is a Federal government of the United States, federal body operating under the United States Secretary of the Interior. The purpose of the board is to establish and maintain uniform usage of geogr ...

, which has responsibility for formal naming of municipalities and geographic features, has deprecated the use of possessive apostrophes since 1890 so as not to show ownership of the place. Only five names of natural features in the US are officially spelled with a genitive apostrophe:

Martha's Vineyard Martha's Vineyard, often simply called the Vineyard, is an island in the U.S. state of Massachusetts, lying just south of Cape Cod. It is known for being a popular, affluent summer colony, and includes the smaller peninsula Chappaquiddick Isla ...

;

Ike's Point Middle Township is a township in Cape May County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey. The township, and all of Cape May County, is part of the Ocean City metropolitan statistical area, and is part of the Philadelphia- Wilmington- Camden, PA-NJ ...

, New Jersey;

John E's Pond John E's Pond or John E's Tug Hole is a pond on Block Island in Washington County, Rhode Island. The land around the pond is partially conserved by The Nature Conservancy and by the Block Island Land Trust. The pond is part of a larger network of ...

, Rhode Island; Carlos Elmer's Joshua View, Arizona; and

Clark's Mountain Clark's Mountain is a summit in Clatsop County, Oregon. It is named for William Clark (1770–1838), who during the Lewis and Clark Expedition, likely viewed the summit from the vicinity of Cape Disappointment. It is located in Ecola State Par ...

, Oregon.How Do I? , US Geological Survey
. usgs.gov. Retrieved on 31 March 2023. Some municipalities, originally incorporated using the apostrophe, have dropped it in accordance with this policy; Taylors Falls in Minnesota, for example, was originally incorporated as "Taylor's Falls". On the state level, the federal policy is not always followed:

Vermont Vermont () is a U.S. state, state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It borders Massachusetts to the south, New Hampshire to the east, New York (state), New York to the west, and the Provinces and territories of Ca ...

's official state website has a page on Camel's Hump State Forest. Australia's Intergovernmental Committee on Surveying and Mapping also has a no-apostrophe policy, a practice it says goes back to the 1900s and which is generally followed around the country. On the other hand, the United Kingdom has

Bishop's Stortford Bishop's Stortford is a historic market town and civil parish in the East Hertfordshire district, in the county of Hertfordshire, England. It is in the London metropolitan area, London commuter belt, near the border with Essex, just west of the ...

Bishop's Castle Bishop's Castle is a market town in the south west of Shropshire, England. According to the 2011 Census it had a population of 1,893. Bishop's Castle is east of the Wales–England border, about north-west of Ludlow and about south-west of ...

and

King's Lynn King's Lynn, known until 1537 as Bishop's Lynn and colloquially as Lynn, is a port and market town in the borough of King's Lynn and West Norfolk in the county of Norfolk, England. It is north-east of Peterborough, north-north-east of Cambridg ...

(among many others) but

St Albans St Albans () is a cathedral city in Hertfordshire, England, east of Hemel Hempstead and west of Hatfield, Hertfordshire, Hatfield, north-west of London, south-west of Welwyn Garden City and south-east of Luton. St Albans was the first major ...

St Andrews St Andrews (; ; , pronounced ʰʲɪʎˈrˠiː.ɪɲ is a town on the east coast of Fife in Scotland, southeast of Dundee and northeast of Edinburgh. St Andrews had a recorded population of 16,800 , making it Fife's fourth-largest settleme ...

and St Helens. London Underground's Piccadilly line has the adjacent stations of

Earl's Court Earl's Court is a district of Kensington in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea in West London, bordering the rail tracks of the West London line and District line that separate it from the ancient borough of Fulham to the west, the ...

and Barons Court. These names were mainly fixed in form many years before grammatical rules were fully standardised. While

Newcastle United Newcastle United Football Club is a professional association football club based in Newcastle upon Tyne, Tyne and Wear, England. The club competes in the Premier League, the top tier of English football league system, English football. Since th ...

play

football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kick (football), kicking a football (ball), ball to score a goal (sports), goal. Unqualified, football (word), the word ''football'' generally means the form of football t ...

at a stadium called

, and

Exeter City Exeter City Football Club is a professional association football club based in Exeter, Devon, England. The team play in , the third level of the English football league system. Known as "the Grecians", the origin of their nickname is subject to ...

St James Park St James Park and variants may refer to: Football stadiums * St James' Park, Newcastle upon Tyne, England, ground of Newcastle United F.C. * St James Park (Exeter), England, ground of Exeter City F.C. * St James Park, ground of Brackley Town F.C., ...

, London has a

(this whole area of London is named after the parish of

St James's Church, Piccadilly St James's Church, Piccadilly, also known as St James's Church, Westminster, and St James-in-the-Fields, is an Anglican church on Piccadilly in the centre of London, England. The church was designed and built by Sir Christopher Wren. The churc ...

). Modern usage has been influenced by considerations of technological convenience including the economy of typewriter ribbons and films, and similar computer character "disallowance" which tend to ignore past standards. Practice in the United Kingdom and Canada is not so uniform.

Possessives in names of organizations

Sometimes the apostrophe is omitted in the names of clubs, societies, and other organizations, even though the standard principles seem to require it: ''

Country Women's Association The Country Women's Association (CWA) is a women's organisation in Australia, which seeks to advance interests of women, families, and communities in Australia, especially those in rural, regional, and remote areas. It comprises seven indep ...

'', but ''International Aviation Association''; ''

Magistrates' Court of Victoria The Magistrates' Court of Victoria is the lowest court in the Australian States and territories of Australia, state of Victoria (Australia), Victoria. The court possesses original jurisdiction over summary offences and indictable offence, in ...

'', but ''

Federated Ship Painters and Dockers Union The Federated Ship Painters and Dockers Union (FSPDU) was an Australian trade union which existed between 1900 and 1993. It represented labourers in the shipbuilding industry, covering "mostly work associated with chipping, painting, scrubbin ...

''. Usage is variable and inconsistent. Style guides typically advise consulting an official source for the standard form of the name (as one would do if uncertain about other aspects of the spelling of the name); some tend towards greater prescriptiveness, for or against such an apostrophe. As the case of ' shows, it is not possible to analyze these forms simply as non-possessive plurals, since ''women'' is the only correct plural form of ''woman''.

Possessives in business names

Where a business name is based on a family name it should in theory take an apostrophe, but many leave it out (contrast ''

Sainsbury's J Sainsbury plc, trading as Sainsbury's, is a British supermarket and the second-largest chain of supermarkets in the United Kingdom. Founded in 1869 by John James Sainsbury with a shop in Drury Lane, London, the company was the largest UK r ...

'' with ''

Harrods Harrods is a Listed building, Grade II listed luxury department store on Brompton Road in Knightsbridge, London, England. It was designed by C. W. Stephens for Charles Digby Harrod, and opened in 1905; it replaced the first store on the ground ...

''). In recent times there has been an increasing tendency to drop the apostrophe. Names based on a first name are more likely to take an apostrophe, but this is not always the case. Some business names may inadvertently spell a different name if the name with an ''s'' at the end is also a name, such as Parson. A small activist group called the Apostrophe Protection Society has campaigned for large retailers such as Harrods,

Currys Currys (branded as Currys PC World between 2010 and 2021) is a British electrical retailer and aftercare service provider operating in the United Kingdom and Ireland, specialising in white goods, consumer electronics, computers and mobile phon ...

, and

Selfridges Selfridges, also known as Selfridges & Co., is a chain of upmarket department stores in the United Kingdom that is operated by Selfridges Retail Limited. It was founded by Harry Gordon Selfridge in 1908. The historic Daniel Burnham-designed Self ...

to reinstate their missing punctuation. A spokesperson for

Barclays PLC Barclays PLC (, occasionally ) is a British multinational universal bank, headquartered in London, England. Barclays operates as two divisions, Barclays UK and Barclays International, supported by a service company, Barclays Execution Services ...

stated, "It has just disappeared over the years. Barclays is no longer associated with the family name."Harrods told to put its apostrophe back
Times Online (21 August 2006). Further confusion can be caused by businesses whose names look as if they should be pronounced differently without an apostrophe, such as Paulos Circus, and other companies that leave the apostrophe out of their logos but include it in written text, such as Cadwalader's.

Apostrophe showing omission

An apostrophe is commonly used to indicate omitted characters, normally letters: * It is used in contractions, such as ''can't'' from ''cannot'', ''it's'' from ''it is'' or ''it has'', and ''I'll'' from ''I will'' or ''I shall''. * It is used in

abbreviation An abbreviation () is a shortened form of a word or phrase, by any method including shortening (linguistics), shortening, contraction (grammar), contraction, initialism (which includes acronym), or crasis. An abbreviation may be a shortened for ...

s, as ''gov't'' for ''government''. It may indicate omitted numbers where the spoken form is also capable of omissions, as '''70s'' for ''1970s'' representing ''seventies'' for ''nineteen-seventies''. In modern usage, apostrophes are generally omitted when letters are removed from the start of a word, particularly for a

compound word In linguistics, a compound is a lexeme (less precisely, a word or Sign language, sign) that consists of more than one Word stem, stem. Compounding, composition or nominal composition is the process of word formation that creates compound lexemes. C ...

. For example, it is not common to write '''bus'' (for ''omnibus''), '''phone'' (''telephone''), '''net'' (''Internet''). However, if the shortening is unusual, dialectal or archaic, the apostrophe may still be used to mark it (e.g., '''bout'' for ''about'', '''less'' for ''unless'', '''twas'' for ''it was''). Sometimes a misunderstanding of the original form of a word results in a non-standard contraction. A common example: '''til'' for ''until'', though ''till'' is in fact the original form, and ''until'' is derived from it. **The spelling ''fo'c's'le'', contracted from the nautical term ''forecastle'', is unusual for having three apostrophes. The spelling ''bo's'n's'' (from ''boatswain's''), as in ''Bo's'n's Mate'', also has three apostrophes, two showing omission and one possession. ''Fo'c's'le'' may also take a possessive ''s'' – as in ''the fo'c's'le's timbers'' – giving four apostrophes in one word. A word which formerly contained two apostrophes is ''sha'n't ''for ''shall not'', examples of which may be found in the older works of

P. G. Wodehouse Sir Pelham Grenville Wodehouse ( ; 15 October 1881 – 14 February 1975) was an English writer and one of the most widely read humorists of the 20th century. His creations include the feather-brained Bertie Wooster and his sagacious valet, Je ...

and "Frank Richards" ( Charles Hamilton), but this has been superseded by ''shan't''. **Shortenings with more apostrophes, such as ''y'all'dn't've'' (

y'all ''Y'all'' (pronounced ) is a contraction of '' you'' and ''all'', sometimes combined as ''you-all''. ''Y'all'' is the main second-person plural pronoun in Southern American English, with which it is most frequently associated, though it also ...

wouldn't have), are possible, particularly in Southern US dialects. *It is sometimes used when the normal form of an inflection seems awkward or unnatural; for example, ''KO'd'' rather than ''KOed'' (where ''KO'' is used as a verb meaning "to knock out"); "''a spare

pince-nez Pince-nez ( or , plural form same as singular; ) is a style of glasses, popular in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, that are supported without earpieces, by pinching the bridge of the nose. The name comes from French language, French ''pi ...

'd man''" (cited in

, entry for "pince-nez"; ''pince-nezed'' is also in citations). *An apostrophe's function as possessive or contractive can depend on the grammatical context: **We rehearsed for Friday's opening night. (''We rehearsed for the opening night on Friday.'') **We rehearsed because Friday's opening night. (''We rehearsed because Friday is opening night.'' "Friday's" here is a contraction of "Friday is".) *

Eye dialect Eye dialect is a writer's use of deliberately nonstandard spelling either because they do not consider the standard spelling a good reflection of the pronunciation or because they are intending to portray vernacular, informal or low-status language ...

s use apostrophes in creating the effect of a non-standard pronunciation. *Apostrophes to omit letters in place names are common on British road signs when space does not allow for the full name for example,

Wolverhampton Wolverhampton ( ) is a city and metropolitan borough in the West Midlands (county), West Midlands of England. Located around 12 miles (20 km) north of Birmingham, it forms the northwestern part of the West Midlands conurbation, with the towns of ...

abbreviated as "W'hampton" and

Kidderminster Kidderminster is a market town and civil parish in Worcestershire, England, south-west of Birmingham and north of Worcester, England, Worcester. Located north of the River Stour, Worcestershire, River Stour and east of the River Severn, in th ...

as "K'minster". *The

, while discouraging possessive apostrophes in place names, allows apostrophes indicating omission, as in "Lake O' the Woods", or when normally present in a surname, as in "O'Malley Draw".

Use in forming some plurals

Following an evolution in usage in the 20th century, today "the apostrophe of plurality continues in at least five areas": abbreviations, letters of the alphabet/small words, numbers, family names, and in non-standard use.

Abbreviations

For abbreviations, including acronyms, the use of ''s'' without an apostrophe is now more common than its use with an apostrophe. Most modern style guides disparage the use of apostrophes in all plural abbreviations. Some references continue to condone their use, or even recommend their use in some abbreviations. For example, ''The Canadian Style'' states "Add an apostrophe and ''s'' to form the plural of abbreviations containing more than one period", so ''G.M.'s'' is preferred to ''G.M.s''. The ''

to the English Language'' condones ''V.I.P.'s'', ''VIP's'', and ''VIPs'' equally.

Letters of the alphabet, and small words

For single lowercase letters, pluralization with '''s'' is usual. Many guides recommend apostrophes whether the single letters are lowercase (as in " minding your p's and q's") or uppercase (as in "A's and S's"). ''

'' recommends the apostrophe of plurality only for lowercase letters. Sometimes, adding just ''s'' rather than '''s'' may leave meaning ambiguous or presentation inelegant. However, an apostrophe is not always the preferred solution.

APA style APA style (also known as APA format) is a writing style and format for academic documents such as Scientific journal, scholarly journal articles and books. It is commonly used for citing sources within the field of Behavioral sciences, behavior ...

requires the use of italics instead of an apostrophe: ''p''s, ''n''s, etc. In the phrase ''dos and don'ts'', most modern style guides disparage spelling the first word as ''do's''. However, there is a lack of consensus and certainly the use of an apostrophe continues, legitimately, in which "the apostrophe of plurality occurs in the first word but not the second".

Numbers and symbols

The ''

to the English Language'' notes that "a plural ''s'' after a set of numbers is often preceded by an apostrophe, as in ''3's and 4's''..., but many housestyles and individuals now favour ''3s and 4s''". Most style guides prefer the lack of apostrophe for groups of years (e.g. ''1980s'') and will prefer ''90s'' or '''90s'' over ''90's'' or '''90's''. While many guides discourage using an apostrophe in all numbers/dates, many other guides ''encourage'' using an apostrophe for numbers or are divided on the issue; for example, the ''Australian Government Style Manual'' recommends "Binary code uses 0’s and 1’s" but recommends "the 2020s". Still other guides take a laissez-faire approach. For example, the University of Sussex's online guide notes regional variation in the use of apostrophes in dates,Guide to Punctuation
, Larry Trask, University of Sussex: "American usage, however, does put an apostrophe here: (A) This research was carried out in 1970's." and slightly prefers ''1's and 7's'' over ''1s and 7s'' but condones both. The apostrophe is very often used in plurals of symbols, for example "that page has too many &'s and #'s on it". Some style guides state that the apostrophe is unnecessary since there is no ambiguity but that some editors and teachers prefer this usage. The addition of an ''s'' without an apostrophe may make the text difficult to read. For many numbers and symbols, a useful alternative is to write out the numbers as words (e.g. ''thousands'' instead of ''1000's'' or ''1000s'', and ''ampersands'' instead of ''&s'' or ''&'s'').

Family names

The vast majority of English references published from the late 20th century onwards disparage the use of apostrophes in family-name plurals, for example identifying ''Joneses'' as correct and ''Jones's'' as incorrect. As an exception, the ''

to the English Language'' (2018) reports that, in addition to ''Joneses'' etc., standard apostrophe usage does continue "in family names, especially if they end in ''-s'', as in '' keeping up with the Jones's''".

Nonstandard use

See , below.

Use in non-English names

Names that are not strictly native to English sometimes have an apostrophe substituted to represent other characters (see also As a mark of elision, below). *Anglicised versions of

Irish surnames A formal Irish name consists of a given name and a surname. In the Irish language, most surnames are patronymic surnames (distinct from patronyms, which are seen in Icelandic names for example). The form of a surname varies according to whether ...

typically contain an apostrophe after an ''O'' (in place of Ó), for example " Dara O'Briain" for . *Some

Scottish Scottish usually refers to something of, from, or related to Scotland, including: *Scottish Gaelic, a Celtic Goidelic language of the Indo-European language family native to Scotland *Scottish English *Scottish national identity, the Scottish ide ...

and Irish surnames use an apostrophe after an ''M'', for example ''M'Gregor''. The apostrophe here may be seen as marking a contraction where the prefix ''Mc'' or ''

Mac Mac or MAC may refer to: Common meanings * Mac (computer), a line of personal computers made by Apple Inc. * Mackintosh, a raincoat made of rubberized cloth * Mac, a prefix to surnames derived from Gaelic languages * McIntosh (apple), a Canadi ...

'' would normally appear. However, it may also arise from a misinterpretation of printers' use of an inverted comma, (''turned comma'' or "6-quote"), as a substitute for superscript ''c'' when printing with hand-set metal type. Compare: M'Lean, M^cLean, M‘Lean.

Use in transliteration

transliterated Transliteration is a type of conversion of a text from one writing system, script to another that involves swapping Letter (alphabet), letters (thus ''wikt:trans-#Prefix, trans-'' + ''wikt:littera#Latin, liter-'') in predictable ways, such as ...

foreign words, an apostrophe may be used to separate letters or syllables that otherwise would likely be interpreted incorrectly. For example: *in the

Arabic Arabic (, , or , ) is a Central Semitic languages, Central Semitic language of the Afroasiatic languages, Afroasiatic language family spoken primarily in the Arab world. The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) assigns lang ...

word , a transliteration of , the syllables are as in ''mus·haf'', not ''mu·shaf'' *in the Japanese name '' Shin'ichi'', the apostrophe shows that the pronunciation is ''shi·n·i·chi'' (

hiragana is a Japanese language, Japanese syllabary, part of the Japanese writing system, along with ''katakana'' as well as ''kanji''. It is a phonetic lettering system. The word ''hiragana'' means "common" or "plain" kana (originally also "easy", ...

), where the letters ''n'' () and ''i'' () are separate morae, rather than ''shi·ni·chi'' (). *in the Chinese

Pinyin Hanyu Pinyin, or simply pinyin, officially the Chinese Phonetic Alphabet, is the most common romanization system for Standard Chinese. ''Hanyu'' () literally means 'Han Chinese, Han language'—that is, the Chinese language—while ''pinyin' ...

romanization, the apostrophe (, , géyīn fúhào, 'syllable-dividing mark') is used before a syllable starting with a vowel (''a'', ''o'', or ''e'') in a multiple-syllable word when the syllable does not start the word (which is most commonly realized as ), unless the syllable immediately follows a

hyphen The hyphen is a punctuation mark used to join words and to separate syllables of a single word. The use of hyphens is called hyphenation. The hyphen is sometimes confused with dashes (en dash , em dash and others), which are wider, or with t ...

or other dash. This is done to remove ambiguity that could arise, as in ''

Xi'an Xi'an is the list of capitals in China, capital of the Chinese province of Shaanxi. A sub-provincial city on the Guanzhong plain, the city is the third-most populous city in Western China after Chongqing and Chengdu, as well as the most populou ...

'', which consists of the two syllables ' ("") ' (""), compared to such words as ' (""). (This ambiguity does not occur when tone marks are used: The two tone marks in ' unambiguously show that the word consists of two syllables. However, even with tone marks, the city is usually spelled with an apostrophe as '.) Furthermore, an apostrophe may be used to indicate a

glottal stop The glottal stop or glottal plosive is a type of consonantal sound used in many Speech communication, spoken languages, produced by obstructing airflow in the vocal tract or, more precisely, the glottis. The symbol in the International Phonetic ...

in transliterations. For example: *in the Arabic word , a common transliteration of (part of) ''al-qur'ān'', the apostrophe corresponds to the diacritic maddah over the , one of the letters in the

Arabic alphabet The Arabic alphabet, or the Arabic abjad, is the Arabic script as specifically codified for writing the Arabic language. It is a unicase, unicameral script written from right-to-left in a cursive style, and includes 28 letters, of which most ...

. An by itself would indicate the long vowel , and the adds a glottal stop. Rather than (

modifier letter left half ring The modifier letter left half ring ⟨⟩ is a character found in Unicode in the Spacing Modifier Letters range (although it is not a modifier, but a standalone grapheme). It is used in romanization to transliterate the Semitic abjads, Semitic abj ...

), the apostrophe is sometimes used to indicate a

voiced pharyngeal fricative The voiced pharyngeal approximant or fricative is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is , and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is ?\. Epiglot ...

as it sounds and looks like the glottal stop to most English speakers. For example: *in the Arabic word for , the apostrophe corresponds to the Arabic letter . Finally, in "scientific" transliteration of Cyrillic script, the apostrophe usually represents the

soft sign The soft sign (Ь ь; italics: ) is a letter in the Cyrillic script that is used in various Slavic languages. In Old Church Slavonic, it represented a short or reduced front vowel. However, over time, the specific vowel sound it denote ...

, though in "ordinary" transliteration it is usually omitted. For example, * "The

Ob River The Ob (; ) is a major river in Russia. It is in western Siberia, and with its tributary the Irtysh forms the world's seventh-longest river system, at . The Ob forms at the confluence of the Biya and Katun which have their origins in the Alta ...

(Russian: Обь), also Ob', is a major river in western Siberia."

Non-standard English use

Failure to observe standard use of the apostrophe is widespread and frequently criticised as incorrect, often generating heated debate. The British founder of the Apostrophe Protection Society earned a 2001 Ig Nobel prize for "efforts to protect, promote and defend the differences between plural and possessive". A 2004 report by British examination board OCR stated that "the inaccurate use of the apostrophe is so widespread as to be almost universal". A 2008 survey found that nearly half of the UK adults polled were unable to use the apostrophe correctly.Half of Britons struggle with the apostrophe
, ''The Daily Telegraph'', 11 November 2008

Superfluous apostrophes ("greengrocers' apostrophes")

Apostrophes used in a non-standard manner to form

noun In grammar, a noun is a word that represents a concrete or abstract thing, like living creatures, places, actions, qualities, states of existence, and ideas. A noun may serve as an Object (grammar), object or Subject (grammar), subject within a p ...

s are known as ''greengrocers' apostrophes'' or ''grocers' apostrophes'', often written as ''greengrocer's apostrophes'' or ''grocer's apostrophes''. They are sometimes humorously called ''greengrocers apostrophe's'', ''rogue apostrophes'', or ''idiot's apostrophes'' (a literal translation of the

German German(s) may refer to: * Germany, the country of the Germans and German things **Germania (Roman era) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizenship in Germany, see also Ge ...

word ''Deppenapostroph'', which criticises the misapplication of apostrophes in

Denglisch Denglisch () is a term describing the increased use of anglicisms and pseudo-anglicisms in the German language. It is a portmanteau of the German words (''German'') and . The term is first recorded from 1965.Lambert, James. 2018. A multit ...

). The practice, once common and acceptable (see Historical development), comes from the identical sound of the

and

forms of most English

s. It is often criticised as a form of

hypercorrection In sociolinguistics, hypercorrection is the nonstandard use of language that results from the overapplication of a perceived rule of language-usage prescription. A speaker or writer who produces a hypercorrection generally believes through a ...

coming from a widespread ignorance of the proper use of the apostrophe or of punctuation in general.

Lynne Truss Lynne Truss (born 31 May 1955) is an English author, journalist, novelist, and radio broadcaster and dramatist. She champions correctness and aesthetics in the English language, which is the subject of her 2003 book, '' Eats, Shoots & Leaves: ...

, author of ''

Eats, Shoots & Leaves ''Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation'' is a non-fiction book written by Lynne Truss, the former host of BBC Radio 4's '' Cutting a Dash'' programme. In the book, published in 2003, Truss bemoans the state of punc ...

'', points out that before the 19th century it was standard orthography to use the apostrophe to form a plural of a foreign-sounding word that ended in a vowel (e.g., , , , , , ) to clarify pronunciation. Truss says this usage is no longer considered proper in formal writing. The term is believed to have been coined in the middle of the 20th century by a teacher of languages working in

Liverpool Liverpool is a port City status in the United Kingdom, city and metropolitan borough in Merseyside, England. It is situated on the eastern side of the River Mersey, Mersey Estuary, near the Irish Sea, north-west of London. With a population ...

, at a time when such mistakes were common in the handwritten signs and advertisements of

greengrocer A greengrocer is a person who owns or operates a shop selling primarily produce, fruit and vegetables. The term may also be used to refer to a shop selling primarily produce. It is used predominantly in the United Kingdom and Australia. In the ...

s (e.g., '' 1/- a pound, 1/6 d a pound''). Some have argued that its use in mass communication by employees of well-known companies has led to the less literate assuming it to be standard and adopting the habit themselves. The same use of apostrophe before

-s forms is sometimes made by non-native speakers of English. For example, in

Dutch Dutch or Nederlands commonly refers to: * Something of, from, or related to the Netherlands ** Dutch people as an ethnic group () ** Dutch nationality law, history and regulations of Dutch citizenship () ** Dutch language () * In specific terms, i ...

, the apostrophe is inserted before the ''s'' when pluralising most words ending in a vowel or ''y'' for example, (English ''babies'') and (English ''radios''). This often produces so-called " Dunglish" errors when carried over into English.

Hyperforeignism A hyperforeignism is a type of hypercorrection where speakers identify an inaccurate pattern in loanwords from a foreign language and then apply that pattern to other loanwords (either from the same language or a different one). This results in a ...

has been formalised in some pseudo-

anglicism An anglicism is a word or construction borrowed from English by another language. Due to the global dominance of English in the 20th and 21st centuries, many English terms have become widespread in other languages. Technology-related English ...

s. For example, the French word (from English ''pin'') is used (with the apostrophe in both singular and plural) for

collectible A collectable (collectible or collector's item) is any object regarded as being of value or interest to a collector. Collectable items are not necessarily monetarily valuable or uncommon. There are numerous types of collectables and terms t ...

lapel pin A lapel pin, also known as an enamel pin, is a small brooch, pin worn on clothing, often on the Jacket lapel, lapel of a jacket, attached to a bag, or displayed on a piece of fabric. Lapel pins can be ornamental or can indicate the wearer's affi ...

s. Similarly, there is an

Andorra Andorra, officially the Principality of Andorra, is a Sovereignty, sovereign landlocked country on the Iberian Peninsula, in the eastern Pyrenees in Southwestern Europe, Andorra–France border, bordered by France to the north and Spain to A ...

n football club called (after such British clubs as Rangers F.C.) and a Japanese dance group called

Super Monkey's was a Japanese pop-singing and dancing group that spawned the careers of Namie Amuro and some members of the girl group MAX. The group was active between 1991 until 1996. History Pre-debut The group was originally part of a larger 15-membe ...

Omission

In the UK there is a tendency to drop apostrophes in many commonly used names such as St Annes, St Johns Lane, and so on. UK supermarket chain

Tesco Tesco plc () is a British multinational groceries and general merchandise retailer headquartered in the United Kingdom at its head offices in Welwyn Garden City, England. The company was founded by Jack Cohen (businessman), Sir Jack Cohen in ...

omits the mark where standard practice would require it. Signs in Tesco advertise (among other items) . In his book '' Troublesome Words'', author

Bill Bryson William McGuire Bryson ( ; born 8 December 1951) is an American-British journalist and author. Bryson has written a number of nonfiction books on topics including travel, the English language, and science. Born in the United States, he has be ...

lambasts Tesco for this, stating that "the mistake is inexcusable, and those who make it are linguistic

Neanderthal Neanderthals ( ; ''Homo neanderthalensis'' or sometimes ''H. sapiens neanderthalensis'') are an extinction, extinct group of archaic humans who inhabited Europe and Western and Central Asia during the Middle Pleistocene, Middle to Late Plei ...

s." The

discourages the use of possessive apostrophes in geographic names (see

), though state agencies do not always conform; Vermont's official state website provides information concerning Camel's Hump State Forest. The Geographical Names Board of

New South Wales New South Wales (commonly abbreviated as NSW) is a States and territories of Australia, state on the Eastern states of Australia, east coast of :Australia. It borders Queensland to the north, Victoria (state), Victoria to the south, and South ...

, Australia, excludes possessive apostrophes from place names, along with other punctuation.

Particular cases

George Bernard Shaw George Bernard Shaw (26 July 1856 – 2 November 1950), known at his insistence as Bernard Shaw, was an Irish playwright, critic, polemicist and political activist. His influence on Western theatre, culture and politics extended from the 188 ...

, a proponent of

English spelling reform For centuries, there have been movements to reform the spelling of the English language. Such spelling reform seeks to change English orthography so that it is more consistent, matches pronunciation better, and follows the alphabetic principle. ...

on phonetic principles, argued that the apostrophe was mostly redundant. He did not use it for spelling ''cant'', ''hes'', etc., in many of his writings. He did, however, allow ''I'm'' and ''it's''.

Hubert Selby Jr. Hubert "Cubby" Selby Jr. (July 23, 1928 – April 26, 2004) was an American writer. Two of his novels, ''Last Exit to Brooklyn'' (1964) and ''Requiem for a Dream'' (1978), explore worlds in the New York area and were adapted as films, both of w ...

used a slash instead of an apostrophe mark for contractions and did not use an apostrophe at all for possessives.

Lewis Carroll Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (27 January 1832 – 14 January 1898), better known by his pen name Lewis Carroll, was an English author, poet, mathematician, photographer and reluctant Anglicanism, Anglican deacon. His most notable works are ''Alice ...

made greater use of apostrophes, and frequently used ''sha'n't'', with an apostrophe in place of the elided ''ll'' as well as the more usual ''o''. These authors' usages have not become widespread. The British pop group

Hear'Say Hear'Say were a British pop group. They were created through the ITV (TV network), ITV reality TV show ''Popstars (British TV series), Popstars'' in February 2001, the first UK series of the international ''Popstars'' Media franchise, franch ...

famously made unconventional use of an apostrophe in its name. Truss comments that "the naming of Hear'Say in 2001 was ... a significant milestone on the road to punctuation anarchy".

Criticism

Over the years, the use of apostrophes has been criticised. George Bernard Shaw called them "uncouth bacilli", referring to the apostrophe-like shape of many

bacteria Bacteria (; : bacterium) are ubiquitous, mostly free-living organisms often consisting of one Cell (biology), biological cell. They constitute a large domain (biology), domain of Prokaryote, prokaryotic microorganisms. Typically a few micr ...

. The author and language commentator

Anu Garg Anu Garg (born April 5, 1967) is an American author and speaker. He is the founder of Wordsmith.org, an online community comprising aficionados of the English language from across 170 countries. His books explore the joy of words. He has authored ...

has called for the abolition of the apostrophe, stating "Some day this world would be free of metastatic cancers, narcissistic con men, and the apostrophe." In his book ''American Speech'', linguist Steven Byington stated of the apostrophe that "the language would be none the worse for its abolition". Adrian Room, in his ''

English Journal ''English Journal'' (previously ''The English Journal'') is the official publication of the Secondary Education section of the American National Council of Teachers of English. The peer-reviewed journal has been published since 1912 and features ...

'' article "Axing the Apostrophe", argued that apostrophes are unnecessary, and context will resolve any ambiguity. In a letter to the ''English Journal'', Peter Brodie stated that apostrophes are "largely decorative ... ndrarely clarify meaning".

John C. Wells John Christopher Wells (born 11 March 1939) is a British phonetician and Esperantist. Wells is a professor emeritus at University College London, where until his retirement in 2006 he held the departmental chair in phonetics. He is known for ...

, emeritus professor of phonetics at

University College London University College London (Trade name, branded as UCL) is a Public university, public research university in London, England. It is a Member institutions of the University of London, member institution of the Federal university, federal Uni ...

, says the apostrophe is "a waste of time". The Apostrophe Protection Society, founded by retired journalist John Richards in 2001, was brought to a full stop in 2019, after a period of 18 years in activity. Concerning that, Richards—then aged 96, and dashed by its unsuccess—exclaimed that "the ignorance and laziness present in modern times have won!" In a ''

Chronicle of Higher Education ''The Chronicle of Higher Education'' is an American newspaper and website that presents news, information, and jobs for college and university faculty and student affairs professionals, including staff members and administrators. A subscriptio ...

'' blog,

Geoffrey Pullum Geoffrey Keith Pullum (; born 8 March 1945) is a British and American linguist specialising in the study of English. Pullum has published over 300 articles and books on various topics in linguistics, including phonology, morphology, semantics ...

proposed that the apostrophe be considered the 27th letter of the alphabet, arguing that it is not a form of

Non-English use

As a mark of elision

In many languages, especially European languages, the apostrophe is used to indicate the

of one or more sounds, as in English. *In

Albanian Albanian may refer to: *Pertaining to Albania in Southeast Europe; in particular: **Albanians, an ethnic group native to the Balkans **Albanian language **Albanian culture **Demographics of Albania, includes other ethnic groups within the country ...

, the apostrophe is used to show that a vowel has been omitted from words, especially in different forms of verbs and in some forms of personal pronoun. For example, : them (from : them), (from ). It is used too in some of the forms of possessive pronouns, for example: (from ). *In

Afrikaans Afrikaans is a West Germanic languages, West Germanic language spoken in South Africa, Namibia and to a lesser extent Botswana, Zambia, Zimbabwe and also Argentina where there is a group in Sarmiento, Chubut, Sarmiento that speaks the Pat ...

, as in Dutch, the apostrophe is used to show that letters have been omitted from words. The most common use is in the indefinite article , which is a contraction of ''een'' meaning 'one' (the number). As the initial ''e'' is omitted and cannot be capitalised, the second word in a sentence that begins with is capitalised instead. For example: , 'A tree is green'. In addition, the apostrophe is used for plurals and diminutives where the root ends with long

vowel A vowel is a speech sound pronounced without any stricture in the vocal tract, forming the nucleus of a syllable. Vowels are one of the two principal classes of speech sounds, the other being the consonant. Vowels vary in quality, in loudness a ...

s, e.g. , , , , etc. * In Catalan, French,

Italian Italian(s) may refer to: * Anything of, from, or related to the people of Italy over the centuries ** Italians, a Romance ethnic group related to or simply a citizen of the Italian Republic or Italian Kingdom ** Italian language, a Romance languag ...

, Ligurian, and

Occitan Occitan may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to the Occitania territory in parts of France, Italy, Monaco and Spain. * Something of, from, or related to the Occitania administrative region of France. * Occitan language, spoken in parts o ...

word sequences such as , (often shortened to ''maître d'', when used in English), , and the final vowel in the first word (''de'' 'of', ''le'' 'the', etc.) is elided because the word that follows it starts with a vowel or a mute h. French elision similarly occurs with instead of ('that he'), instead of ('it is' / 'it's'), and so on. Catalan, French, Italian, and Occitan surnames sometimes contain apostrophes of elision, e.g. , . ** French feminine singular

possessive adjective Possessive determiners are determiners which express possession. Some traditional grammars of English refer to them as possessive adjectives, though they do not have the same syntactic distribution as ''bona fide'' adjectives. Examples in Engli ...

s do not undergo such elision anymore, but change to the masculine form instead: ' preceding ' becomes ' ('my church'). **

Quebec Quebec is Canada's List of Canadian provinces and territories by area, largest province by area. Located in Central Canada, the province shares borders with the provinces of Ontario to the west, Newfoundland and Labrador to the northeast, ...

Bill 101 The ''Charter of the French Language'' (, ), also known as Bill 101 (, ), is a law in the Canadian province of Quebec defining French, the language of the majority of the population, as the official language of the provincial government. It is th ...

, which dictates the use of French in the province, prohibits the use of apostrophes in proper names in which it would not be used in proper French (thus the international donut chain

Tim Hortons Tim Hortons Inc., known colloquially as Tim's, Timmies, or Timmy's, is a Canadian multinational coffeehouse and restaurant chain with headquarters in Toronto; it serves coffee, Doughnut, donuts, sandwiches, Breakfast sandwich, breakfast egg mu ...

, originally spelled with the possessive apostrophe as Tim Horton's, was required to drop the apostrophe in Quebec to comply with Bill 101). *In Danish, apostrophes are sometimes seen on

commercial Commercial may refer to: * (adjective for) commerce, a system of voluntary exchange of products and services ** (adjective for) trade, the trading of something of economic value such as goods, services, information or money * a dose of advertising ...

materials. One might commonly see ('Take me with ou) next to a stand with advertisement leaflets; that would be written in standard orthography. As in German, the apostrophe must not be used to indicate the possessive, except when there is already an ''s'', ''x'' or ''z'' present in the base form, as in ('the Book of Esajas'). *In

, as in Afrikaans, the apostrophe is used to indicate omitted characters. For example, the indefinite article can be shortened to , and the definite article shortened to . When this happens in the first word of a sentence, the ''second'' word of the sentence is capitalised. In general, this way of using the apostrophe is considered non-standard, except as '' genitivus temporalis'' in , , , (for , 'at morning, at afternoon, at evening, at night') and in some frozen place names such as ''

's-Hertogenbosch s-Hertogenbosch (), colloquially known as Den Bosch (), is a List of cities in the Netherlands by province, city and List of municipalities of the Netherlands, municipality in the Netherlands with a population of 160,783. It is the capital of ...

'' (

, lit. "The

Duke Duke is a male title either of a monarch ruling over a duchy, or of a member of Royal family, royalty, or nobility. As rulers, dukes are ranked below emperors, kings, grand princes, grand dukes, and above sovereign princes. As royalty or nobi ...

's forest"), ''s-Gravenhage'' (traditional name of

The Hague The Hague ( ) is the capital city of the South Holland province of the Netherlands. With a population of over half a million, it is the third-largest city in the Netherlands. Situated on the west coast facing the North Sea, The Hague is the c ...

, lit. "The

Count Count (feminine: countess) is a historical title of nobility in certain European countries, varying in relative status, generally of middling rank in the hierarchy of nobility. Pine, L. G. ''Titles: How the King Became His Majesty''. New York: ...

's hedge"), ''s-Gravenbrakel'' (

Braine-le-Comte Braine-le-Comte (; ; ) is a city and municipality of Wallonia located in the province of Hainaut, Belgium. On January 1, 2018, Braine-le-Comte had a total population of 21,649. The total area is which gives a population density of 260 inhabi ...

, in Belgium), ''s-Hertogenrade'' (

Herzogenrath Herzogenrath (; ; ) is a municipality in the district of Aachen in the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia. It borders the Dutch town of Kerkrade, the national border in one section running along the middle of a main road and even directly ...

, in Germany), etc. In addition, the apostrophe is used for plurals where the singulars end with long

s, e.g. , ; and for the genitive of proper names ending with these vowels, e.g. , . These are in fact elided vowels; use of the apostrophe prevents spellings like and . However, most

diminutive A diminutive is a word obtained by modifying a root word to convey a slighter degree of its root meaning, either to convey the smallness of the object or quality named, or to convey a sense of intimacy or endearment, and sometimes to belittle s ...

s do not use an apostrophe where the plural forms would; producing spellings such as and . *In

Esperanto Esperanto (, ) is the world's most widely spoken Constructed language, constructed international auxiliary language. Created by L. L. Zamenhof in 1887 to be 'the International Language' (), it is intended to be a universal second language for ...

, the limits the elision mark to the definite article (from ) and singular nominative nouns ( from , 'heart'). This is mostly confined to poetry and songs. Idiomatic phrases such as (from , 'thanks to') and (from 'of the') are nonetheless frequent. In-word elision is usually marked with a

, as in (from , 'Dr'). Some early guides used and advocated the use of apostrophes between word parts, to aid recognition of such

s as , 'guitarist'; but in the latter case, modern usage is to use either a hyphen or a middle dot when disambiguation is necessary, as in ''ĉas-hundo'' or ''ĉas·hundo'', "a hunting dog", not to be mispronounced as ''ĉa.ŝun.do''. * In Finnish, the apostrophe is used in inflected forms of words whose basic form has a "k" between similar vowels, to show that the "k" has elided in the inflected form: for example the word ' ("raw") becomes ' in the plural. The apostrophe shows that the identical vowels on either side of it belong to different syllables. * The

Galician language Galician ( , ), also known as Galego (), is a Iberian Romance languages, Western Ibero-Romance language. Around 2.4 million people have at least some degree of competence in the language, mainly in Galicia (Spain), Galicia, an Autonomo ...

standard admits the use of the apostrophe () for contractions that normally do not use it (e.g.: de + a= da), when the second element begins a proper noun, generally a title: (the plot of A Esmorga itle of a novel. They are also used to reproduce oral elisions and, as stated below, to join (or split) commercial names of popular public establishments such as restaurants (, The pot). * In

Ganda Ganda may refer to: Places * Ganda, Angola * Ganda, Tibet, China * Ganda, the ancient Latin name of Ghent, a city in Belgium * Ganda, a settlement in Kilifi County, Kenya Other uses * Baganda or Ganda, a people of Uganda ** Luganda or Ganda lang ...

, when a word ending with a

is followed by a word beginning with a vowel, the final vowel of the first word is

elided In linguistics, an elision or deletion is the omission of one or more sounds (such as a vowel, a consonant, or a whole syllable) in a word or phrase. However, these terms are also used to refer more narrowly to cases where two words are run toget ...

and the initial vowel of the second word lengthened in compensation. When the first word is a

monosyllable In linguistics, a monosyllable is a word or utterance of only one syllable. It is most commonly studied in the fields of phonology and morphology. The word has originated from the Greek language Greek (, ; , ) is an Indo-European languages, Ind ...

, this elision is represented in the orthography with an apostrophe: in ' 'the father of the children', ' ('of') becomes ''w''; in ' ('who is it?'), ' ('who') becomes ''y''. But the final vowel of a

polysyllable A syllable is a basic unit of organization within a sequence of speech sounds, such as within a word, typically defined by linguists as a ''nucleus'' (most often a vowel) with optional sounds before or after that nucleus (''margins'', which are ...

is always written, even if it is elided in speech: ' ('this man'), not *', because ' ('man') is a polysyllable. * In German an apostrophe is used almost exclusively to indicate omitted letters. It must not be used for plurals or most of the possessive forms. The only exceptions are the possessive cases of names ending in an "s"-sound as in ', or "to prevent ambiguities" in all other possessive cases of names, as in ' (referring to the female name ', not the male name '). The English/Saxon style of using an apostrophe for possession was introduced after the spelling reform, but is strongly disagreed on by native speakers, and discouraged. Although possessive usage (beyond the exceptions) is widespread, it is often deemed incorrect. The German equivalent of "greengrocers' apostrophes" would be the derogatory ' ('idiot's apostrophe'; ). * In modern printings of

Ancient Greek Ancient Greek (, ; ) includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the classical antiquity, ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Greek ...

, apostrophes are also used to mark elision. Some Ancient Greek words that end in short vowels elide when the next word starts with a vowel. For example, many Ancient Greek authors would write (') for (') and (') for ('). Such modern usage should be carefully distinguished from

polytonic Greek Greek orthography has used a variety of diacritics starting in the Hellenistic period. The more complex polytonic orthography (), which includes five diacritics, notates Ancient Greek phonology. The simpler monotonic orthography (), introduce ...

's native rough and

smooth breathing The smooth breathing (; ''psilí''; ) is a diacritical mark used in polytonic orthography. In Ancient Greek, it marks the absence of the voiceless glottal fricative from the beginning of a word. Some authorities have interpreted it as repr ...

marks, which usually appear as a form of rounded apostrophe. * In

Hebrew Hebrew (; ''ʿÎbrit'') is a Northwest Semitic languages, Northwest Semitic language within the Afroasiatic languages, Afroasiatic language family. A regional dialect of the Canaanite languages, it was natively spoken by the Israelites and ...

, the ''

geresh Geresh ( in Hebrew: or , or medieval ) is a sign in Hebrew writing. It has two meanings. #An apostrophe-like sign (also known colloquially as a ''chupchik'') placed after a letter: #* as a diacritic that modifies the pronunciation of some ...

'' (׳), often typed as an apostrophe, is used to denote abbreviations. A double ''geresh'' (״), known by the dual form

gershayim Gershayim (Hebrew: , without niqqud ), also occasionally grashayim. (), can refer to either of two distinct typographical marks in the Hebrew language. The name literally means "double geresh". Punctuation mark Gershayim most commonly refers t ...

, is used to denote

acronym An acronym is a type of abbreviation consisting of a phrase whose only pronounced elements are the initial letters or initial sounds of words inside that phrase. Acronyms are often spelled with the initial Letter (alphabet), letter of each wor ...

s or

initialism An acronym is a type of abbreviation consisting of a phrase whose only pronounced elements are the initial letters or initial sounds of words inside that phrase. Acronyms are often spelled with the initial letter of each word in all caps wi ...

s; it is inserted before (i.e., to the right of) the last letter of the acronym. Examples: (abbreviation for , 'professor', '

professor Professor (commonly abbreviated as Prof.) is an Academy, academic rank at university, universities and other tertiary education, post-secondary education and research institutions in most countries. Literally, ''professor'' derives from Latin ...

'); (', ' P.S.'). The ''geresh'' is also used to indicate the elision of a sound; however, this use is much less frequent, and confined to the purpose of imitating a natural, informal utterance, for example: (' – short for , ', 'I am/do not'). *In Irish, the past tense of verbs beginning with a vowel, or with ''fh'' followed by a vowel, begins with ''d' ''(elision of ''do''), for example becomes ('opened') and becomes ('returned'). The copula is often elided to '''s'', and ('to'), ('my') etc. are elided before ''f'' and vowels. *In

it is used for elision with pronouns, as in instead of ; with articles, as in instead of ; and for truncation, as in instead of . Stylistically, sentences beginning with È (as in ) are often rendered as E' in newspapers, to minimise

leading In typography, leading ( ) is the space between adjacent lines of type; the exact definition varies. In hand typesetting, leading is the thin strips of lead (or aluminium) that were inserted between lines of type in the composing stick to incre ...

(inter-line spacing). *In modern Norwegian, the apostrophe marks that a word has been contracted, such as ' from ' ('have/has not'). Unlike English and French, such elisions are not accepted as part of standard orthography but are used to create a more "oral style" in writing. The apostrophe is also used to mark the genitive for words that end in an -s sound: words ending in -s, -x, and -z, some speakers also including words ending in the sound . As Norwegian does not form the plural with -s, there is no need to distinguish between an -s forming the possessive and the -s forming the plural. Therefore, we have ' ('man') and ' ('man's'), without apostrophe, but ' ('naval pilot') and '' ('naval pilot's'). Indicating the possessive for the two former American presidents named George Bush, whose names end in , could be written as both ' (simply adding an -s to the name) and ' (adding an apostrophe to the end of the name). * In Portuguese the apostrophe is used to reproduce certain popular pronunciations such as (pay attention to yourself) or in a few combinations of word, when there is the suppression of the vowel of the preposition ''de'' in certain compound words (the ones formed by two or more stems) such as ('water tower'), ('guineafowl'), (a plant species, ), ('morning star'), etc. Portuguese has many contractions between prepositions and articles or pronouns (like ''na'' for ''em'' + ''a''), but these are written without an apostrophe. Also, the apostrophe is most commonly not used in the word ''pra'', the reduced or popular form of the preposition ''para'' (but some advocate for its used in preposition + article contractions: ''para + a = p'ra/pra'', ''para + o = p'ro/pro'', etc.). * Modern Spanish no longer uses the apostrophe to indicate elision in standard writing, although it can sometimes be found in older poetry for that purpose. Instead Spanish writes out the spoken elision in full (', ') except for the contraction ' for ' + ', and ''al'' for ''a'' + ''el'', which use no apostrophe. *In Swedish, the apostrophe marks an elision, such as ', short for ' ('in the city'), to make the text more similar to the spoken language. This is relaxed style, fairly rarely used, and would not be used by traditional newspapers in political articles, but could be used in entertainment related articles and similar. The formal way to denote elision in Swedish is by using colon, e.g. ' for ' which is rarely spelled out in full. The apostrophe must not be used to indicate the possessive except – although not mandatory – when there is already an ''s'', ''x'' or ''z'' present in the base form, as in '. * Welsh uses the apostrophe to mark elision of the definite article ('the') following a vowel (''a'', ''e'', ''i'', ''o'', ''u'', ''y'', or, in Welsh, ''w''), as in , 'to the house'. It is also used with the particle , such as with , 'she is'.

As a glottal stop

Several languages and transliteration systems use the apostrophe or some similar mark to indicate a

, sometimes considering it a letter of the alphabet: *In several

Finno-Ugric languages Finno-Ugric () is a traditional linguistic grouping of all languages in the Uralic language family except for the Samoyedic languages. Its once commonly accepted status as a subfamily of Uralic is based on criteria formulated in the 19th centur ...

, such as

Estonian Estonian may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to Estonia, a country in the Baltic region in northern Europe * Estonians, people from Estonia, or of Estonian descent * Estonian language * Estonian cuisine * Estonian culture See also

...

and Finnish; for example in the Finnish word ', being the genitive or accusative of ' ('raw'). *In Guarani, it is called ' , and used in the words ' (language, to speak), ' (grass), ' (sterile). *In Hawaiian, the ''

okina Okina may refer to: * ʻOkina, a letter used in some Polynesian languages, visually resembling a left single quotation mark * Okina () or , a character from the ''Rurouni Kenshin'' manga series * Okina, Spain, a village in the Basque Country * , ...

'' , an inverted apostrophe, is often rendered as . It is considered a letter of the alphabet. * Mayan. *In the

Tongan language Tongan (English pronunciation: ; ') is an Austronesian language of the Polynesian branch native to the island nation of Tonga. It has around 187,000 speakers. It uses the word order verb–subject–object and uses Latin script. Related lang ...

, the apostrophe is called a ' and is the last letter of the alphabet. It represents the glottal stop. Like the okina, it is inverted. *Various other

Austronesian languages The Austronesian languages ( ) are a language family widely spoken throughout Maritime Southeast Asia, parts of Mainland Southeast Asia, Madagascar, the islands of the Pacific Ocean and Taiwan (by Taiwanese indigenous peoples). They are spoken ...

, such as Samoan, Tahitian, and Chamorro. *

Tetum Tetum may refer to: * Tetum language, an Austronesian language ** Tetum alphabet, used to write the Tetum language * Tetum people, an ethnic group of East Timor and Indonesia {{disambiguation Language and nationality disambiguation pages ...

, one of the official languages of

East Timor Timor-Leste, also known as East Timor, officially the Democratic Republic of Timor-Leste, is a country in Southeast Asia. It comprises the eastern half of the island of Timor, the coastal exclave of Oecusse in the island's northwest, and ...

. *The Brazilian native

Tupi language Old Tupi, Ancient Tupi or Classical Tupi () is a classical Tupian language which was spoken by the indigenous Tupi people of Brazil, mostly those who inhabited coastal regions in South and Southeast Brazil. In the words of Brazilian tupinol ...

. * Mossi (Mooré), a language of

Burkina Faso Burkina Faso is a landlocked country in West Africa, bordered by Mali to the northwest, Niger to the northeast, Benin to the southeast, Togo and Ghana to the south, and Ivory Coast to the southwest. It covers an area of 274,223 km2 (105,87 ...

. *In

Võro Võro may refer to: * Võro people, an ethnic group of Estonia * Võro language, a language belonging to the Baltic-Finnic branch of the Finno-Ugric languages of Estonia * Võro Institute, the governing organization of the Võro language * Õil ...

, the apostrophe is used in parallel with the letter ''q'' as symbol of plural, for example ''majaq'' or ''maja''' ('houses'), imperative ''annaq'' or ''anna''', and in all other word forms with glottal stop. *Several

fictional languages Fictional languages are the subset of constructed languages (conlangs) that have been created as part of a fictional setting (e.g. for use in a book, movie, television show, or video game). Typically they are the creation of one individual, while ...

such as

Klingon The Klingons ( ; Klingon language, Klingon: ''tlhIngan'' ) are a humanoid species of aliens in the science fiction franchise ''Star Trek''. Developed by screenwriter Gene L. Coon in 1967 for the Star Trek: The Original Series, original ''Star T ...

D'ni ''Myst'' is a franchise centered on a series of adventure game, adventure video games. The first game in the series, ''Myst'', was released in 1993 by brothers Rand Miller, Rand and Robyn Miller and their video game company Cyan Worlds, Cyan, In ...

, Mando'a or

Na'vi In the 2009 science-fiction film ''Avatar (2009 film), Avatar'', director James Cameron conceived a fictional universe in which humans seek to mine unobtainium#Science fiction, unobtanium on the fictional Habitability of natural satellites, h ...

add apostrophes to make names appear "alien". The apostrophe represents sounds resembling the glottal stop in the

Turkic languages The Turkic languages are a language family of more than 35 documented languages, spoken by the Turkic peoples of Eurasia from Eastern Europe and Southern Europe to Central Asia, East Asia, North Asia (Siberia), and West Asia. The Turkic langua ...

and in some

romanization In linguistics, romanization is the conversion of text from a different writing system to the Latin script, Roman (Latin) script, or a system for doing so. Methods of romanization include transliteration, for representing written text, and tra ...

s of

Semitic languages The Semitic languages are a branch of the Afroasiatic languages, Afroasiatic language family. They include Arabic, Amharic, Tigrinya language, Tigrinya, Aramaic, Hebrew language, Hebrew, Maltese language, Maltese, Modern South Arabian language ...

, including

and

. In that case, the letter '' 'ayn'' (Arabic ع and Hebrew ע) is correspondingly transliterated with the opening single quotation mark.

As a mark of palatalization or non-palatalization

Some languages and

transliteration Transliteration is a type of conversion of a text from one script to another that involves swapping letters (thus '' trans-'' + '' liter-'') in predictable ways, such as Greek → and → the digraph , Cyrillic → , Armenian → or L ...

systems use the apostrophe to mark the presence, or the lack of,

palatalization Palatalization may refer to: *Palatalization (phonetics), the phonetic feature of palatal secondary articulation *Palatalization (sound change) Palatalization ( ) is a historical-linguistic sound change that results in a palatalized articulati ...

: *In Belarusian and Ukrainian, the apostrophe is used between a consonant and a following "soft" (

iotated In Slavic languages, iotation (, ) is a form of palatalization that occurs when a consonant comes into contact with the palatal approximant from the succeeding phoneme. The is represented by iota (ι) in the early Cyrillic alphabet and the Gre ...

) vowel (Be.: е, ё, ю, я; Uk.: є, ї, ю, я) to indicate that ''no'' palatalization of the preceding consonant takes place, and the vowel is pronounced in the same way as at the beginning of a word. It therefore marks a morpheme boundary before and, in Belarusian, is a letter of the alphabet (as the hard sign in Russian is) rather than a simple punctuation mark in English, as it is not a punctuation mark in Belarusian. It appears frequently in Ukrainian, as, for instance, in the words: () 'five', () 'departure', () 'united', () 'to clear up, explain', () play (drama), etc. *In

Russian Russian(s) may refer to: *Russians (), an ethnic group of the East Slavic peoples, primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries *A citizen of Russia *Russian language, the most widely spoken of the Slavic languages *''The Russians'', a b ...

and some derived alphabets, the same function has been served by the

hard sign The letter Ъ ъ (italics ) of the Cyrillic script is known as er golyam ( – "big er") in the Bulgarian alphabet, as the hard sign (, , ) in the modern Russian and Rusyn alphabets (although in Rusyn, ъ could also be known as ір), as t ...

(ъ, formerly called ''yer''). But the apostrophe saw some use as a substitute after 1918, when Soviet authorities enforced an orthographic reform by confiscating

movable type Movable type (US English; moveable type in British English) is the system and technology of printing and typography that uses movable Sort (typesetting), components to reproduce the elements of a document (usually individual alphanumeric charac ...

bearing the hard sign from stubborn printing houses in Petrograd. *In some Latin transliterations of certain

Cyrillic alphabets Numerous Cyrillic alphabets are based on the Cyrillic script. The early Cyrillic alphabet was developed in the 9th century AD and replaced the earlier Glagolitic script developed by the theologians Saints Cyril and Methodius, Cyril and Methodi ...

(for Belarusian,

, and Ukrainian), the apostrophe is used to replace the

(ь, indicating palatalization of the preceding consonant), e.g., ''Русь'' is transliterated ''

Rus' Rus or RUS may refer to: People * East Slavic historical peoples (). See Names of Rus', Russia and Ruthenia ** Rus' people, the people of Rus' ** Rus, a legendary eponymous ancestor, see Lech, Czech and Rus * Rus (surname), a surname found in Ro ...

'' according to the BGN/PCGN system. (The

is also used for the same purpose.) Some of these transliteration schemes use a double apostrophe ( ˮ ) to represent the apostrophe in Ukrainian and Belarusian text and the hard sign (ъ) in Russian text, e.g. Ukrainian ' ('Slavic') is transliterated as '. *Some Karelian orthographies use an apostrophe to indicate palatalization, e.g. ' ('to give advice'), ' ('just (like)'), ' ('to revive'). *In

an apostrophe is often (also in the Võro Wikipedia) used as a simplification to replace the regular Võro palatalization mark which is the accute accent, for example ''as'aq'' replacing regular form ''aśaq'' ('things').

To separate morphemes

Some languages use the apostrophe to separate the

root In vascular plants, the roots are the plant organ, organs of a plant that are modified to provide anchorage for the plant and take in water and nutrients into the plant body, which allows plants to grow taller and faster. They are most often bel ...

of a word and its

affix In linguistics, an affix is a morpheme that is attached to a word stem to form a new word or word form. The main two categories are Morphological derivation, derivational and inflectional affixes. Derivational affixes, such as ''un-'', ''-ation' ...

es, especially if the root is foreign and unassimilated. (For another kind of morphemic separation see

pinyin Hanyu Pinyin, or simply pinyin, officially the Chinese Phonetic Alphabet, is the most common romanization system for Standard Chinese. ''Hanyu'' () literally means 'Han Chinese, Han language'—that is, the Chinese language—while ''pinyin' ...

, below.) * In Danish an apostrophe is sometimes used to join the

enclitic In morphology and syntax, a clitic ( , backformed from Greek "leaning" or "enclitic"Crystal, David. ''A First Dictionary of Linguistics and Phonetics''. Boulder, CO: Westview, 1980. Print.) is a morpheme that has syntactic characteristics of a ...

definite article In grammar, an article is any member of a class of dedicated words that are used with noun phrases to mark the identifiability of the referents of the noun phrases. The category of articles constitutes a part of speech. In English, both "the" ...

to words of foreign origin, or to other words that would otherwise look awkward. For example, one would write ' to mean "the

IP address An Internet Protocol address (IP address) is a numerical label such as that is assigned to a device connected to a computer network that uses the Internet Protocol for communication. IP addresses serve two main functions: network interface i ...

". There is some variation in what is considered "awkward enough" to warrant an apostrophe; for instance, long-established words such as ' ('company') or ' ('level') might be written ' and ', but will generally be seen without an apostrophe. Due to Danish influence, this usage of the apostrophe can also be seen in Norwegian, but is non-standard – a hyphen should be used instead: e.g. (the CD). *In

...

, apostrophes can be used in the declension of some foreign names to separate the stem from any

declension In linguistics, declension (verb: ''to decline'') is the changing of the form of a word, generally to express its syntactic function in the sentence by way of an inflection. Declension may apply to nouns, pronouns, adjectives, adverbs, and det ...

endings; e.g., ' (

genitive case In grammar, the genitive case ( abbreviated ) is the grammatical case that marks a word, usually a noun, as modifying another word, also usually a noun—thus indicating an attributive relationship of one noun to the other noun. A genitive ca ...

) or ' (

illative case In grammar, the illative case (; abbreviated ; from "brought in") is a grammatical case used in the Finnish, Estonian, Lithuanian, Latvian and Hungarian languages. It is one of the locative cases, and has the basic meaning of "into (the in ...

) of ''Monet'' (name of the famous painter). *In Finnish, apostrophes are used in the declension of foreign names or loan words that end in a consonant when written but are pronounced with a vowel ending, e.g. ' ('in a show'), ' ('to Bordeaux'). For Finnish as well as Swedish, there is a closely related use of the colon. *In

Polish Polish may refer to: * Anything from or related to Poland, a country in Europe * Polish language * Polish people, people from Poland or of Polish descent * Polish chicken * Polish brothers (Mark Polish and Michael Polish, born 1970), American twin ...

, the apostrophe is used exclusively for marking inflections of words and word-like elements (but not

s – a hyphen is used instead) whose spelling conflicts with the normal rules of inflection. This mainly affects foreign words and names. For instance, one would correctly write ' for "

Al Gore Albert Arnold Gore Jr. (born March 31, 1948) is an American former politician, businessman, and environmentalist who served as the 45th vice president of the United States from 1993 to 2001 under President Bill Clinton. He previously served as ...

's campaign". In this example, ' is spelled without an apostrophe, since its spelling and pronunciation fit into normal Polish rules; but ' needs the apostrophe, because ''e'' disappears from the pronunciation, changing the inflection pattern. This rule is often misunderstood as calling for an apostrophe after ''all'' foreign words, regardless of their pronunciation, yielding the incorrect ', for example. The effect is akin to the greengrocers' apostrophe (see above). *In Turkish,

proper nouns A proper noun is a noun that identifies a single entity and is used to refer to that entity (''Africa''; ''Jupiter''; ''Sarah''; ''Walmart'') as distinguished from a common noun, which is a noun that refers to a class of entities (''continent, pl ...

are capitalised and an apostrophe is inserted between the noun and any following

inflectional suffix In linguistics, a suffix is an affix which is placed after the stem of a word. Common examples are case endings, which indicate the grammatical case of nouns and adjectives, and verb endings, which form the conjugation of verbs. Suffixes can carr ...

, e.g. ' ("in

Istanbul Istanbul is the List of largest cities and towns in Turkey, largest city in Turkey, constituting the country's economic, cultural, and historical heart. With Demographics of Istanbul, a population over , it is home to 18% of the Demographics ...

"), contrasting with ' ("in school", ' is a common noun) and ' ('Istanbulite', ''-lu'' is a derivational suffix). *In Welsh the apostrophe is used with infixed pronouns in order to distinguish them from the preceding word (e.g. ', 'and my sister' as opposed to ', 'about a sister').

Miscellaneous uses in other languages

*In

Breton Breton most often refers to: *anything associated with Brittany, and generally **Breton people **Breton language, a Southwestern Brittonic Celtic language of the Indo-European language family, spoken in Brittany ** Breton (horse), a breed **Gale ...

, the combination ' is used for the consonant (like ''ch'' in

Scottish English Scottish English is the set of varieties of the English language spoken in Scotland. The transregional, standardised variety is called Scottish Standard English or Standard Scottish English (SSE). Scottish Standard English may be defined ...

''Loch Ness''), while ' is used for the consonant (as in French ' or English ''she''). *In

Czech Czech may refer to: * Anything from or related to the Czech Republic, a country in Europe ** Czech language ** Czechs, the people of the area ** Czech culture ** Czech cuisine * One of three mythical brothers, Lech, Czech, and Rus *Czech (surnam ...

, an apostrophe is used for writing to indicate spoken or informal language where the writer wants to express the natural way of informal speech, but it should not be used in formal text or text of a serious nature. E.g., instead of ' ('he read'), the word form ' is used. ' is the informal variant of the verb form ', at least in some varieties. These two words are the same in meaning, but to use the informal form gives the text a more natural tone, as though a friend were talking to you. Furthermore, the same as in the Slovak case below holds for lowercase ''t'' and ''d'', and for the two-digit year notation. *In Finnish, one of the

consonant gradation Consonant gradation is a type of consonant mutation (mostly lenition but also assimilation) found in some Uralic languages, more specifically in the Finnic, Samic and Samoyedic branches. It originally arose as an allophonic alternation ...

patterns is the change of a ''k'' into a

hiatus Hiatus may refer to: * Hiatus (anatomy), a natural fissure in a structure * Hiatus (stratigraphy), a discontinuity in the age of strata in stratigraphy *''Hiatus'', a genus of picture-winged flies with sole member species '' Hiatus fulvipes'' * G ...

, e.g. ' → ' ('a pile' → 'a pile's'). This hiatus has to be indicated in spelling with an apostrophe if a long vowel (represented by doubling (e.g. ) or the final vowel of a diphthong (e.g. ) would be immediately followed by the same vowel, e.g. ' → ', ' → '. (This is in contrast to compound words, where the problem of a vowel recurring over a syllable break is solved with a

, e.g. ', 'land area'.) Similarly, the apostrophe is used to mark the

(contraction) that occurs in poetry, e.g. ' for ' ('where is'). * Galician restaurants sometimes use ' in their names following the standard article ' ('the'). *In

, ' (pronounced ) is used in place of ''ŋ'' on keyboards where this character is not available. The apostrophe distinguishes it from the letter combination ' (pronounced ), which has separate use in the language. Compare this with the Swahili usage below. *In

, the ''

'' (a diacritic similar to the apostrophe and often represented by one) is used for several purposes other than to mark an elision: **As an adjacent to letters to show sounds that are not represented in the

Hebrew alphabet The Hebrew alphabet (, ), known variously by scholars as the Ktav Ashuri, Jewish script, square script and block script, is a unicase, unicameral abjad script used in the writing of the Hebrew language and other Jewish languages, most notably ...

: Sounds such as (English ''j'' as in ''job''), (English ''th'' as in ''thigh''), and (English ''ch'' as in ''check'') are indicated using ג, ת, and צ with a ''

'' (informally ''chupchik''). For example, the name ''George'' is spelled in Hebrew (with representing the first and last consonants). **To denote a

Hebrew numeral Hebrew (; ''ʿÎbrit'') is a Northwest Semitic languages, Northwest Semitic language within the Afroasiatic languages, Afroasiatic language family. A regional dialect of the Canaanite languages, it was natively spoken by the Israelites and ...

(e.g., , which stands for '50') **To denote a Hebrew letter which stands for itself (e.g., – the letter '' mem'') **

Gershayim Gershayim (Hebrew: , without niqqud ), also occasionally grashayim. (), can refer to either of two distinct typographical marks in the Hebrew language. The name literally means "double geresh". Punctuation mark Gershayim most commonly refers t ...

(a double geresh) to denote a Hebrew letter name (e.g., – the letter ''

lamed Lamedh or lamed is the twelfth letter of the Semitic abjads, including Hebrew ''lāmeḏ'' , Aramaic ''lāmaḏ'' 𐡋, Syriac ''lāmaḏ'' ܠ, Arabic ''lām'' , and Phoenician ''lāmd'' 𐤋. Its sound value is . It is also related to the Anc ...

'') **Another (rarer) use of geresh is to denote the last syllable (which in some cases, but not all, is a

suffix In linguistics, a suffix is an affix which is placed after the stem of a word. Common examples are case endings, which indicate the grammatical case of nouns and adjectives, and verb endings, which form the conjugation of verbs. Suffixes can ca ...

) in some words of

Yiddish Yiddish, historically Judeo-German, is a West Germanic language historically spoken by Ashkenazi Jews. It originated in 9th-century Central Europe, and provided the nascent Ashkenazi community with a vernacular based on High German fused with ...

origin Origin(s) or The Origin may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Comics and manga * ''Origin'' (comics), a Wolverine comic book mini-series published by Marvel Comics in 2002 * ''The Origin'' (Buffy comic), a 1999 ''Buffy the Vampire Sl ...

(e.g., ). **In the

Middle Ages In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the 5th to the late 15th centuries, similarly to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire and ...

and the

Early modern period The early modern period is a Periodization, historical period that is defined either as part of or as immediately preceding the modern period, with divisions based primarily on the history of Europe and the broader concept of modernity. There i ...

, gershayim were also used to denote foreign words, as well as a means of emphasis. * In Italian, an apostrophe is sometimes used as a substitute for a

grave A grave is a location where a cadaver, dead body (typically that of a human, although sometimes that of an animal) is burial, buried or interred after a funeral. Graves are usually located in special areas set aside for the purpose of buria ...

or an

acute accent The acute accent (), , is a diacritic used in many modern written languages with alphabets based on the Latin alphabet, Latin, Cyrillic script, Cyrillic, and Greek alphabet, Greek scripts. For the most commonly encountered uses of the accen ...

. This may be done after an initial E or an accented final vowel (when writing in all-capitals), or when the proper form of the letter is unavailable for technical reasons. So a sentence beginning ('It is true that...') may be written as . This form is often seen in newspapers, as it is the only case of an accent above the

cap height In typography, cap height is the height of a capital letter above the baseline for a particular typeface A typeface (or font family) is a design of Letter (alphabet), letters, Numerical digit, numbers and other symbols, to be used in printing ...

and its omission permits the text to be more closely spaced (

). Less commonly, a forename like might be rendered as ''Niccolo'', or ''NICCOLO''; ''perché'', as ''perche'', or ''PERCHE''. This applies only to machine or computer writing, in the absence of a suitable keyboard. * In

Jèrriais ( ; also known as the Jersey language, Jersey French and Jersey Norman French in English) is a Romance languages, Romance language and the traditional language of the Jersey people. It is a form of the Norman language spoken in Jersey, an isla ...

, one of the uses of the apostrophe is to mark

gemination In phonetics and phonology, gemination (; from Latin 'doubling', itself from '' gemini'' 'twins'), or consonant lengthening, is an articulation of a consonant for a longer period of time than that of a singleton consonant. It is distinct from ...

, or consonant length: For example, ' represents , ' , ' , ' , and ' (contrasted with , , , , and ). * In Lithuanian, the apostrophe is occasionally used to add a Lithuanized ending on an international word, e.g.- "parking'as", "Skype'as", "Facebook'as". * In standard

Lojban Lojban (pronounced ) is a Logical language, logical, constructed language, constructed, human language created by the Logical Language Group which aims to be Syntactic ambiguity, syntactically unambiguous. It succeeds the Loglan project. The Log ...

orthography, the apostrophe is a letter in its own right (called ) that can appear only between two vowels, and is phonemically realised as either or, more rarely, � *In

Macedonian Macedonian most often refers to someone or something from or related to Macedonia. Macedonian(s) may refer to: People Modern * Macedonians (ethnic group), a nation and a South Slavic ethnic group primarily associated with North Macedonia * Mac ...

the apostrophe is sometimes used to represent the sound schwa, which can be found on dialectal levels, but not in the Standard Macedonian. *In Slovak, the

caron A caron or háček ( ), is a diacritic mark () placed over certain letters in the orthography of some languages, to indicate a change of the related letter's pronunciation. Typographers tend to use the term ''caron'', while linguists prefer ...

over lowercase ''t'', ''d'', ''l'', and uppercase ''L''

consonants In articulatory phonetics, a consonant is a speech sound that is articulated with complete or partial closure of the vocal tract, except for the h sound, which is pronounced without any stricture in the vocal tract. Examples are and pronou ...

resembles an apostrophe, for example, ''ď'', ''ť'', ''ľ'', and ''Ľ''. This is especially so in certain common typographic renderings. But it is non-standard to use an apostrophe instead of the caron. There is also ''l'' with an acute accent: ''ĺ'', ''Ĺ''. In Slovak the apostrophe is properly used only to indicate

in certain words (', as an abbreviated form of ' ('you are'), or ' for ' ('up')); however, these elisions are restricted to poetry (with a few exceptions). Moreover, the apostrophe is also used before a two-digit year number (to indicate the omission of the first two digits): ' (usually used for 1987). * In Swahili, an apostrophe after ' shows that there is no sound of after the sound; that is, that the ' is pronounced as in English ''singer'', not as in English ''finger''. * In Switzerland, the apostrophe is used as

thousands separator alt=Four types of separating decimals: a) 1,234.56. b) 1.234,56. c) 1'234,56. d) ١٬٢٣٤٫٥٦., Both a full_stop.html" ;"title="comma and a full stop">comma and a full stop (or period) are generally accepted decimal separators for interna ...

alongside the fixed space (e.g., 2'000'000 or for two million) in all four

national languages '' '' A national language is a language (or language variant, e.g. dialect) that has some connection— de facto or de jure—with a nation. The term is applied quite differently in various contexts. One or more languages spoken as first languag ...

. * In the new Uzbek Latin alphabet adopted in 2000, the apostrophe serves as a

diacritical mark A diacritic (also diacritical mark, diacritical point, diacritical sign, or accent) is a glyph added to a letter or to a basic glyph. The term derives from the Ancient Greek (, "distinguishing"), from (, "to distinguish"). The word ''diacrit ...

to distinguish different phonemes written with the same letter: it differentiates ' (corresponding to Cyrillic '' ў'') from ', and ' (Cyrillic '' ғ'') from '. This avoids the use of special characters, allowing Uzbek to be typed with ease in ordinary

ASCII ASCII ( ), an acronym for American Standard Code for Information Interchange, is a character encoding standard for representing a particular set of 95 (English language focused) printable character, printable and 33 control character, control c ...

on any Latin keyboard. In addition, a postvocalic apostrophe in Uzbek represents the glottal stop phoneme derived from Arabic ''

hamza The hamza ( ') () is an Arabic script character that, in the Arabic alphabet, denotes a glottal stop and, in non-Arabic languages, indicates a diphthong, vowel, or other features, depending on the language. Derived from the letter '' ʿayn'' ( ...

h'' or '' ʼayn'', replacing Cyrillic '' ъ''. *In English

Yorkshire dialect Yorkshire dialect, also known as Yorkshire English, Broad Yorkshire, Tyke, or Yorkie, is a grouping of several regionally neighbouring Dialect, dialects of English language, English spoken in Yorkshire. Yorkshire experienced drastic dialect ...

, the apostrophe is used to represent the word ''the'', which is contracted to a more glottal (or 'unreleased') /t/ sound. Most users will write ''in t'barn'' ('in the barn'), ''on t'step'' ('on the step'); and those unfamiliar with Yorkshire speech will often make these sound like ''intuh barn'' and ''ontuh step''. A more accurate rendition might be ''in't barn'' and ''on't step'', though even this does not truly convey correct Yorkshire pronunciation as the ''t'' is more like a

. *In the

(hànyǔ pīnyīn) system of

for

Standard Chinese Standard Chinese ( zh, s=现代标准汉语, t=現代標準漢語, p=Xiàndài biāozhǔn hànyǔ, l=modern standard Han speech) is a modern standard form of Mandarin Chinese that was first codified during the republican era (1912–1949). ...

, an apostrophe is often loosely said to separate syllables in a word where ambiguity could arise. Example: the standard romanization for the name of the city ''

Xī'ān Xi'an is the capital of the Chinese province of Shaanxi. A sub-provincial city on the Guanzhong plain, the city is the third-most populous city in Western China after Chongqing and Chengdu, as well as the most populous city in Northwestern Ch ...

'' includes an apostrophe to distinguish it from a single-syllable word '. More strictly, however, it is standard to place an apostrophe only before every ''a'', ''e'', or ''o'' that starts a new syllable after the first if it is not preceded by a hyphen or a dash. Examples: '' Tiān'ānmén'', '' Yǎ'ān''; but simply '' Jǐnán'', in which the syllables are ''ji'' and ''nan'', since the absence of an apostrophe shows that the syllables are not ''jin'' and ''an'' (contrast '' Jīn'ān''). This is a kind of morpheme-separation marking (see

). *In the largely superseded

Wade–Giles Wade–Giles ( ) is a romanization system for Mandarin Chinese. It developed from the system produced by Thomas Francis Wade during the mid-19th century, and was given completed form with Herbert Giles's '' A Chinese–English Dictionary'' ...

romanization for Standard Chinese, an apostrophe marks aspiration of the preceding consonant sound. Example: in ''tsê'' (pinyin ''ze'') the consonant represented by ''ts'' is unaspirated, but in ''ts'ê'' (pinyin ''ce'') the consonant represented by ''ts'' is aspirated. Some academic users of the system write this character as a

spiritus asper In the polytonic orthography of Ancient Greek, the rough breathing ( or ; ) character is a diacritical mark used to indicate the presence of an sound before a vowel, diphthong, or after rho. It remained in the polytonic orthography even afte ...

( or ) or single left (opening)

quotation mark Quotation marks are punctuation marks used in pairs in various writing systems to identify direct speech, a quotation, or a phrase. The pair consists of an opening quotation mark and a closing quotation mark, which may or may not be the sam ...

(‘). *In some systems of romanization for the Japanese, the apostrophe is used between

moras Moras is a commune in the Isère department in southeastern France. Population See also *Communes of the Isère department The following is a list of the 512 communes in the French department of Isère. The communes cooperate in the ...

in ambiguous situations, to differentiate between, for example, ' and ' + '. (This is similar to the practice in Pinyin mentioned above.) *In science fiction and fantasy, the apostrophe is often used in fictional names, sometimes to indicate a

(for example Mitth'raw'nuruodo in ''

Star Wars ''Star Wars'' is an American epic film, epic space opera media franchise created by George Lucas, which began with the Star Wars (film), eponymous 1977 film and Cultural impact of Star Wars, quickly became a worldwide popular culture, pop cu ...

''), but also sometimes simply for decoration.

Typographic form

The shape of the apostrophe originated in

manuscript A manuscript (abbreviated MS for singular and MSS for plural) was, traditionally, any document written by hand or typewritten, as opposed to mechanically printed or reproduced in some indirect or automated way. More recently, the term has ...

writing, as a point with a downwards tail curving clockwise. This is the form of the modern punctuation apostrophe (), (which is also known informally as the

typeset Typesetting is the composition of text for publication, display, or distribution by means of arranging physical ''type'' (or ''sort'') in mechanical systems or ''glyphs'' in digital systems representing '' characters'' (letters and other ...

apostrophe, the typographic apostrophe or the curly apostrophe) and of the right single quotation mark. Later

sans-serif In typography and lettering, a sans-serif, sans serif (), gothic, or simply sans letterform is one that does not have extending features called "serifs" at the end of strokes. Sans-serif typefaces tend to have less stroke width variation than ...

typefaces had stylised apostrophes with a more geometric or simplified form, but usually retaining the same directional bias as a closing quotation mark. With the invention of the

typewriter A typewriter is a Machine, mechanical or electromechanical machine for typing characters. Typically, a typewriter has an array of Button (control), keys, and each one causes a different single character to be produced on paper by striking an i ...

, a "neutral" or "straight" shape quotation mark, (known as the "typewriter apostrophe" or the "ASCII apostrophe"), was created to represent a number of different glyphs with a single keystroke: the apostrophe, both the opening and the closing single

s, the single

primes A prime number (or a prime) is a natural number greater than 1 that is not a product of two smaller natural numbers. A natural number greater than 1 that is not prime is called a composite number. For example, 5 is prime because the only ways ...

, and on some typewriters even the

exclamation point The exclamation mark (also known as exclamation point in American English) is a punctuation mark usually used after an interjection or exclamation to indicate strong feelings or to show emphasis. The exclamation mark often marks the end of a ...

(by backspacing and overprinting with a period). This is known as the typewriter apostrophe or vertical apostrophe. The same convention was adopted for double

s (). Both simplifications carried over to computer keyboards and the

character set.

Informal use in measurement and mathematics

Formally, the symbol used to represent a

of length, depth, or height, is (prime) and that for the

inch The inch (symbol: in or prime (symbol), ) is a Units of measurement, unit of length in the imperial units, British Imperial and the United States customary units, United States customary System of measurement, systems of measurement. It is eq ...

is (double prime). (Thus, for example, the notation signifies 5 feet and 7 inches). Similarly, the prime symbol is the formal representation of a

minute of arc A minute of arc, arcminute (abbreviated as arcmin), arc minute, or minute arc, denoted by the symbol , is a unit of angular measurement equal to of a degree. Since one degree is of a turn, or complete rotation, one arcminute is of a tu ...

(1/60 of a degree in

geometry Geometry (; ) is a branch of mathematics concerned with properties of space such as the distance, shape, size, and relative position of figures. Geometry is, along with arithmetic, one of the oldest branches of mathematics. A mathematician w ...

and

geomatics Geomatics is defined in the ISO/TC 211 series of standards as the "discipline concerned with the collection, distribution, storage, analysis, processing, presentation of geographic data or geographic information". Under another definition, it ...

), and double prime represents a

second of arc A minute of arc, arcminute (abbreviated as arcmin), arc minute, or minute arc, denoted by the symbol , is a unit of angular measurement equal to of a degree. Since one degree is of a turn, or complete rotation, one arcminute is of a tu ...

(for example, 17°54′32″ represents 17 degrees 54 minutes and 32 seconds). Similarly in mathematics, the prime is generally used to generate more variable names for similar things without resorting to subscripts, with generally meaning something related to (or derived from) . Because of the very close similarity of the typewriter apostrophe and typewriter double quote to prime and double prime, substitution in informal contexts is ubiquitous but they are deprecated in contexts where proper typography is important. There is also a risk of an automatic process "correcting" a typewriter apostrophe to a punctuation apostrophe, which results in another variant when a prime symbol was intended.

Unicode

In its

Unicode Standard Unicode or ''The Unicode Standard'' or TUS is a character encoding standard maintained by the Unicode Consortium designed to support the use of text in all of the world's writing systems that can be digitized. Version 16.0 defines 154,998 cha ...

(version 13.0), the

Unicode Consortium The Unicode Consortium (legally Unicode, Inc.) is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization incorporated and based in Mountain View, California, U.S. Its primary purpose is to maintain and publish the Unicode Standard which was developed with the in ...

describes three characters that represent apostrophe: *: The typewriter or ASCII apostrophe. The standard remarks: * is preferred where the character is to represent a punctuation mark, as for contractions: "we’ve", and the code is also referred to as a punctuation apostrophe. The closing single quote and the apostrophe were unified in Unicode 2.1 "to correct problems in the mapping tables from

Windows Windows is a Product lining, product line of Proprietary software, proprietary graphical user interface, graphical operating systems developed and marketed by Microsoft. It is grouped into families and subfamilies that cater to particular sec ...

and

Macintosh Mac is a brand of personal computers designed and marketed by Apple Inc., Apple since 1984. The name is short for Macintosh (its official name until 1999), a reference to the McIntosh (apple), McIntosh apple. The current product lineup inclu ...

code pages." This can make searching text more difficult as quotes and apostrophes cannot be distinguished without context. * (from Unicode block

Spacing Modifier Letters Spacing Modifier Letters is a Unicode block containing characters for the IPA, UPA, and other phonetic transcriptions. Included are the IPA tone marks, and modifiers for aspiration and palatalization. The word ''spacing'' indicates that these ...

) is preferred where the apostrophe is to represent a modifier letter (for example, in transliterations to indicate a glottal stop). In the latter case, it is also referred to as a letter apostrophe. The letter apostrophe may be used, for example, in transliterations to represent the Arabic

(''

'') or the Cyrillic "

", or in some orthographies such as ' of

, where this combination is an independent trigraph.

ICANN The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN ) is a global multistakeholder group and nonprofit organization headquartered in the United States responsible for coordinating the maintenance and procedures of several dat ...

considers this the proper character for Ukrainian apostrophe within

IDNs An internationalized domain name (IDN) is an Internet domain name that contains at least one label displayed in Application software, software applications, in whole or in part, in non-Latin script or alphabet or in the Latin alphabet-based char ...

. This character is rendered identically to in the Unicode code charts, and the standard cautions that one should never assume this code is used in any language.

Characters similar to apostrophe

* * * * * Hawaiian ''

'' and for the transliteration of Arabic and Hebrew '' ʻayn''. * * * Arabic ''

'' and Hebrew ''

alef Aleph (or alef or alif, transliterated ʾ) is the first letter of the Semitic abjads, including Phoenician ''ʾālep'' 𐤀, Hebrew ''ʾālef'' , Aramaic ''ʾālap'' 𐡀, Syriac ''ʾālap̄'' ܐ, Arabic ''ʾalif'' , and North Arabian 𐪑 ...

''. * Arabic and Hebrew '' ʿayin''. * Stress accent or dynamic accent. * * One of two characters for glottal stop in

Nenets The Nenets (; ), in the past also called 'Samoyeds' or 'Yuraks', are a Samoyedic ethnic group native to Arctic Russia, Russian Far North. According to the latest census in 2021, there were 49,646 Nenets in the Russian Federation, most of them l ...

. * * Also known as combining Greek '' psili''. * Also known as combining Greek '' dasia''. * * * Identical to U+0313. * Also known as Greek '. * * * * * * * * (or turned comma, which can mark a letter's omission) * * * * * ''

Saltillo Saltillo () is the capital and largest city of the northeastern Mexican state of Coahuila and is also the municipal seat of the municipality of the same name. Mexico City, Monterrey, and Saltillo are all connected by a major railroad and high ...

'' of the languages of Mexico. * * Fullwidth form of the typewriter apostrophe.

Computing

In modern computing practice, Unicode is the standard and default method for character encoding. However, Unicode itself and many legacy applications have echoes of earlier practices. Furthermore, the limited

character set Character encoding is the process of assigning numbers to graphical characters, especially the written characters of human language, allowing them to be stored, transmitted, and transformed using computers. The numerical values that make up a c ...

provided by

computer keyboard A computer keyboard is a built-in or peripheral input device modeled after the typewriter keyboard which uses an arrangement of buttons or Push-button, keys to act as Mechanical keyboard, mechanical levers or Electronic switching system, electro ...

s has also required practical and pragmatic adjustments. These issues are detailed below.

ASCII encoding

The typewriter apostrophe, , was inherited by computer keyboards, and is the only apostrophe character available in the (7-bit)

character encoding Character encoding is the process of assigning numbers to graphical character (computing), characters, especially the written characters of human language, allowing them to be stored, transmitted, and transformed using computers. The numerical v ...

, at code value 0x27 (39). In ASCII, it may be used to represent any of left single

, right single quotation mark, apostrophe, vertical line or

prime A prime number (or a prime) is a natural number greater than 1 that is not a product of two smaller natural numbers. A natural number greater than 1 that is not prime is called a composite number. For example, 5 is prime because the only ways ...

(punctuation marks), or an

(modifier letters). In Unicode, which is a superset of ASCII, it is encoded as . Many earlier (pre-1985) computer displays and printers rendered the ASCII apostrophe as a punctuation apostrophe, and rendered the

backtick The backtick is a typographical mark used mainly in computing. It is also known as backquote, grave, or grave accent. The character was designed for typewriters to add a grave accent to a (lower-case) base letter, by overtyping it atop that let ...

(freestanding

grave accent The grave accent () ( or ) is a diacritical mark used to varying degrees in French, Dutch, Portuguese, Italian, Catalan and many other Western European languages as well as for a few unusual uses in English. It is also used in other ...

symbol, , 0x60, 96) as a matching left single quotation mark. This allowed a more "typeset" appearance of text: ``I can't'' would appear as on these systems. This can still be seen in many documents prepared at that time, and is still used in the

TeX Tex, TeX, TEX, may refer to: People and fictional characters * Tex (nickname), a list of people and fictional characters with the nickname * Tex Earnhardt (1930–2020), U.S. businessman * Joe Tex (1933–1982), stage name of American soul singer ...

typesetting system to create typographic quotes.

Punctuation apostrophe in 8-bit encodings

Support for the punctuation apostrophe ( ’ ) was introduced in several 8-bit character encodings, such as the original

Apple Macintosh Mac is a brand of personal computers designed and marketed by Apple Inc., Apple since 1984. The name is short for Macintosh (its official name until 1999), a reference to the McIntosh (apple), McIntosh apple. The current product lineup inclu ...

operating system's Mac Roman character set (in 1984), and later in the

CP1252 Windows-1252 or CP-1252 (Windows code page 1252) is a legacy single-byte character encoding that is used by default (as the "ANSI code page") in Microsoft Windows throughout the Americas, Western Europe, Oceania, and much of Africa. Initially t ...

encoding of

Microsoft Windows Windows is a Product lining, product line of Proprietary software, proprietary graphical user interface, graphical operating systems developed and marketed by Microsoft. It is grouped into families and subfamilies that cater to particular sec ...

. Both sets also used this code point for a closing single quote. There is no such character in

ISO 8859-1 ISO/IEC 8859-1:1998, ''Information technology— 8-bit single-byte coded graphic character sets—Part 1: Latin alphabet No. 1'', is part of the ISO/IEC 8859 series of ASCII-based standard character encodings, first edition published in 19 ...

. The

code page In computing, a code page is a character encoding and as such it is a specific association of a set of printable character (computing), characters and control characters with unique numbers. Typically each number represents the binary value in a s ...

(sometimes incorrectly called ''ANSI'' or ''ISO-Latin'') contains the punctuation apostrophe at 0x92. Due to "smart quotes" in Microsoft software converting the ASCII apostrophe to this value, other software makers have been effectively forced to adopt this as a ''de facto'' convention. For instance, the

HTML5 HTML5 (Hypertext Markup Language 5) is a markup language used for structuring and presenting hypertext documents on the World Wide Web. It was the fifth and final major HTML version that is now a retired World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) recommend ...

standard specifies that this value is interpreted as this character from CP1252. Some earlier non-Microsoft browsers would display a '?' for this and make web pages composed with Microsoft software somewhat hard to read. In Unicode (which practically all vendors have adopted), this apostrophe is encoded as . (The canonical name reflects the primary usage; its further use as the preferred form for an apostrophe is recorded in the database.)

Entering apostrophes

Although ubiquitous in typeset material, the punctuation apostrophe () is rather difficult to enter on a computer, since it does not have its own key on most types of consumer keyboard. Outside the world of professional typesetting and graphic design, most people use the typewriter apostrophe (). Because typewriter apostrophes are now often automatically converted to punctuation apostrophes by

word processing A word processor (WP) is a device or computer program that provides for input, editing, formatting, and output of text, often with some additional features. Word processor (electronic device), Early word processors were stand-alone devices dedicate ...

and similar software, the punctuation apostrophe routinely appears in documents produced by non-professionals (albeit sometimes incorrectly—see below).

XML Extensible Markup Language (XML) is a markup language and file format for storing, transmitting, and reconstructing data. It defines a set of rules for encoding electronic document, documents in a format that is both human-readable and Machine-r ...

(and hence

XHTML Extensible HyperText Markup Language (XHTML) is part of the family of XML markup languages which mirrors or extends versions of the widely used HyperText Markup Language (HTML), the language in which Web pages are formulated. While HTML, pr ...

) defines an '

character entity reference Character or Characters may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Literature * ''Character'' (novel), a 1936 Dutch novel by Ferdinand Bordewijk * ''Characters'' (Theophrastus), a classical Greek set of character sketches attributed to Theoph ...

for the ASCII typewriter apostrophe. This entity reference is officially supported in HTML since

HTML 5 HTML5 (Hypertext Markup Language 5) is a markup language used for structuring and presenting hypertext documents on the World Wide Web. It was the fifth and final major HTML version that is now a retired World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) recommend ...

Smart quotes

To make punctuation apostrophes easier to enter,

and publishing software often convert typewriter apostrophes to punctuation apostrophes during text entry (at the same time converting opening and closing single and double quotes to their standard left-handed or right-handed forms). A similar facility may be offered on web servers after submitting text in a form field, e.g. on weblogs or free encyclopedias. This is known as the ''smart quotes'' feature; apostrophes and quotation marks that are not automatically altered by computer programs are known as ''dumb quotes''. Such conversion is not always correct. Smart quotes features often incorrectly convert a leading apostrophe to an opening quotation mark (e.g., in abbreviations of years: ''‘29'' rather than the correct ''’29'' for the years ''1929'' or ''2029'' (depending on context); or ''‘twas'' instead of ''’twas'' as the archaic abbreviation of ''it was''). Smart quote features also often fail to recognise situations when a

rather than an apostrophe is needed; for example, incorrectly rendering the latitude 49° 08″ as 49° 53’ 08”. In

Microsoft Word Microsoft Word is a word processor program, word processing program developed by Microsoft. It was first released on October 25, 1983, under the name Multi-Tool Word for Xenix systems. Subsequent versions were later written for several other platf ...

it is possible to turn smart quotes off (in some versions, by navigating through ''Tools'', ''AutoCorrect'', ''AutoFormat as you type'', and then unchecking the appropriate option). Alternatively, typing Control-Z (for ''Undo'') immediately after entering the apostrophe will convert it back to a typewriter apostrophe. In Microsoft Word for Windows, holding down the Control key while typing two apostrophes will produce a single punctuation apostrophe.

Programming

Some programming languages, like Pascal, use the ASCII apostrophe to delimit

string literal string literal or anonymous string is a literal for a string value in the source code of a computer program. Modern programming languages commonly use a quoted sequence of characters, formally "bracketed delimiters", as in x = "foo", where , "foo ...

s. In many languages, including

JavaScript JavaScript (), often abbreviated as JS, is a programming language and core technology of the World Wide Web, alongside HTML and CSS. Ninety-nine percent of websites use JavaScript on the client side for webpage behavior. Web browsers have ...

ECMAScript ECMAScript (; ES) is a standard for scripting languages, including JavaScript, JScript, and ActionScript. It is best known as a JavaScript standard intended to ensure the interoperability of web pages across different web browsers. It is stan ...

, and

Python Python may refer to: Snakes * Pythonidae, a family of nonvenomous snakes found in Africa, Asia, and Australia ** ''Python'' (genus), a genus of Pythonidae found in Africa and Asia * Python (mythology), a mythical serpent Computing * Python (prog ...

, either the apostrophe or the double quote may be used, allowing string literals to contain the other character (but not to contain both without using an

escape character In computing and telecommunications, an escape character is a character that invokes an alternative interpretation on the following characters in a character sequence. An escape character is a particular case of metacharacters. Generally, the ...

), e.g. foo='He said "Bar!"';. Strings delimited with apostrophes are often called ''single quoted''. Some languages, such as

Perl Perl is a high-level, general-purpose, interpreted, dynamic programming language. Though Perl is not officially an acronym, there are various backronyms in use, including "Practical Extraction and Reporting Language". Perl was developed ...

PHP PHP is a general-purpose scripting language geared towards web development. It was originally created by Danish-Canadian programmer Rasmus Lerdorf in 1993 and released in 1995. The PHP reference implementation is now produced by the PHP Group. ...

, and many shell languages, treat single quoted strings as "raw" strings, while double quoted strings have expressions (such as "$variable") replaced with their values when interpreted. The

C programming language C (''pronounced'' '' – like the letter c'') is a general-purpose programming language. It was created in the 1970s by Dennis Ritchie and remains very widely used and influential. By design, C's features cleanly reflect the capabilities of ...

(and many derived languages like C++,

Java Java is one of the Greater Sunda Islands in Indonesia. It is bordered by the Indian Ocean to the south and the Java Sea (a part of Pacific Ocean) to the north. With a population of 156.9 million people (including Madura) in mid 2024, proje ...

, C#, and Scala) uses apostrophes to delimit a

character literal A character literal is a type of literal in programming for the representation of a single character's value within the source code of a computer program. Languages that have a dedicated character data type generally include character literals; ...

. In these languages a character is a different object than a one-letter string. In C++, since

C++14 C14, C.XIV or C-14 may refer to: Time * The 14th century * Carbon-14, a radioactive isotope of carbon ** Radiocarbon dating, C-14 dating, a method for dating events Science * IEC 60320#C14, IEC 60320 C14, a polarised, three pole socket electrical ...

, apostrophes can be included as optional digit separators in numeric literals. In

Visual Basic Visual Basic is a name for a family of programming languages from Microsoft. It may refer to: * Visual Basic (.NET), the current version of Visual Basic launched in 2002 which runs on .NET * Visual Basic (classic), the original Visual Basic suppo ...

(and earlier Microsoft BASIC dialects such as QuickBASIC) an apostrophe is used to denote the start of a comment. In the

Lisp Lisp (historically LISP, an abbreviation of "list processing") is a family of programming languages with a long history and a distinctive, fully parenthesized Polish notation#Explanation, prefix notation. Originally specified in the late 1950s, ...

family of programming languages, an apostrophe is shorthand for the quote operator. In

Rust Rust is an iron oxide, a usually reddish-brown oxide formed by the reaction of iron and oxygen in the catalytic presence of water or air moisture. Rust consists of hydrous iron(III) oxides (Fe2O3·nH2O) and iron(III) oxide-hydroxide (FeO(OH) ...

, in addition to being used to delimit a character literal, an apostrophe can start an explicit lifetime.

Notes and references

Notes

References

Bibliography

* {{Navbox diacritical marks English orthography Hebrew diacritics Latin-script diacritics Punctuation