The little Apostrophe looms large

The apostrophe looms large in the eyes of many writers, and it's such a little thing. I see its misuse everywhere, in my newspaper, on the internet, on menus in restaurants, and on signs, and am so grateful that we don't use accents in our written language. Why am I still writing about the humble apostrophe? Because it's part of our language, and part of the way we communicate, so it's important that it is used correctly. (See previous post about its and it's.)

I saw a sign a few days ago, on the window of a real estate agent, that proudly proclaimed, "You're home is in here!" Soon afterwards, I saw another sign, on another window: "Come in; your welcome" was boldly writ upon the glass. The message that both of these businesses were communicating was not what they intended it to be.

Where and when to use the apostrophe can be confusing but if we remember that the apostrophe is replacing a letter, (if it is not indicating the possessive), we will make less mistakes.

By using the apostrophe, we make a contraction, that is, two words joined together by the apostrophe. For example:

You're is a contraction of You + Are, so the sign in the real estate agent's window was actually saying: You are home is in here, which of course doesn't make sense. It should have read: Your home is in here!

The sign in the other window should have read: "Come in; you're (you are) welcome."

As always, we can test ourselves on the use or not of the apostrophe by looking at what we have written. If there is an apostrophe there, read it as the original two words. If it fits the sentence, it's okay; if it doesn't, take it out. On the other hand, if you don't have an apostrophe there, and you mean the one word to fill the place of two, you need to insert the apostrophe.

I'll discuss the use of the apostrophe with the possessive in a later post.