Problems with the Apostrophe

English, unlike many other languages, does not use many word endings that denote the function a word has in a sentence. What that means is that, in English, we tend to use position within a sentence to help the reader understand how a word is used within that sentence. As a result, we can use the word “shampoo” as both noun and a verb, and we distinguish which it is because of where it is.

• He is shampooing his hair.
• The shampoo is on aisle 5.
• You should buy some shampoo.
• One property of shampoo is its perfume. 

The first is a verb, denoting an action. The second, third, and fourth are all nouns. The first is used as the subject of a sentence, the second is an object of a verb, and the third is the object of a preposition. Simply changing the way a word is used and where it is placed changes its function in the sentence. That is one thing that makes English difficult—parts of speech do not depend on the word itself and they are not indicated by word endings. Parts of speech simply indicate how a word functions within a sentence, which means a number of words can be several parts of speech even within a single sentence.

To further demonstrate, consider the following sentence:

The teacher said that that that that that boy used was wrong.

Most people get a headache just thinking about that sentence, but it is entirely correct. Maybe it’s not entirely clear, but it is correct.

We have five thats here. The first is a subordinate conjunction introducing a subordinate (or dependent) clause. The second is a demonstrative adjective. The third is actually used as a noun, and the demonstrative adjective tells us which “that” we are discussing. The fourth that is another subordinate conjunction. And the last one is another demonstrative adjective, telling us which boy. 

By now, most of you are probably just shaking your head, thinking to yourself that grammar nuts are, well, crazy, not to mention wondering just what all this has to do with apostrophes.

Ok, here’s the transition. Apostrophes are used for two things: possessives and contractions. The problem I want to bring up involves possessives.

• Employees’ characteristics
• Students’ satisfaction and loyalty
• Dogs’ bones

 

Most people would look at these and consider them acceptable. They are acceptable. They are not ideal because we have another more concise and easier way of dealing with them. Consider the following:

• Employee retention
• Student health
• Cat box 

Why did we not use the apostrophe in each of these instances? You could say employees’ retention, students’ health, cat’s box, but we don’t. If you were actually trying to be consistent that is what you would do. In each case, the first word operates not as a noun, but as an adjective. We know it is an adjective because of its position in the sentence; it precedes a noun. 

The previous phrases should be treated the same way:

• Employee characteristics 
• Student satisfaction and loyalty 
• Dog bones

Why do we try to make these possessives? I think most of us associate words like employee, student, and cat/dog with the part of speech known as a noun, probably because we were made to memorize lists of nouns, verbs, prepositions, and conjunctions in grade school. 

Most of us figure out how useless that little exercise is, but we still have some carry over. 

(And some of you will accuse me of ending a sentence with a preposition here. I did NOT. Because of how it is used, “over” is an adverb in this case, not a preposition.)