Using Non Possessive Apostrophes in Professional Writing

Ladies and gentlemen, my day job is that of an editor, and it's difficult for me to read for pleasure anymore without pointing out obvious errors in writing. Don't get me wrong, in casual writing, I make plenty or typos and grammatical errors myself, but in professional writing, it is important to pay attention to the details.

When perusing the internet, there is one particular grammatical error that bugs me when I see it that is consistently used improperly. The use of the apostrophe in writing should be reserved for missing letters (contractions) and possessives only. It is not used to denote plurals.

In order to help combat this increasingly common punctuation error, this article will provide a very brief explanation about how to use apostrophes in your writing when you are dealing with non possessive words, acronyms and dates.

CD and DVD are two very commonly used acronyms that are often misused when writing their plural versions, so I will use them as my examples, but these grammar and punctuation rules pertain to any word or acronym. One sure fired way when using initials like this is to spell the words out and ask yourself if you would then put an apostrophe on the spelled out words or not.

You see, while we use CD and DVD as 'words' they are actually acronyms standing for 'compact disc' and 'digital video disc'. Do you know how many times I have seen, "I bought some CD's today."

So you bought some compact disc's today? No you bought compact discs.

The only time you would type this as CD's or DVD's is if you were using the possessive form of the word, meaning something belonged to the CD or DVD. While it's not a common use for these types of acronyms, one example might be:

"That is the CD's case."

Otherwise, when using the plural form of the words, meaning more than one CD or more than one DVD, you would type this as CDs and DVDs.

Lastly, let's look at dates.

Contractions are words in which something is missing, usually two words merged into on contracted version of the word.

Cannot = Can't – the apostrophe is for the missing N

Do not = Don't – the apostrophe is for the missing O

The same rule applies for dates. The apostrophe is for the missing numbers, not between the number and the letter 's'.

For example:

1800 = the 1800s

1999 is shortened to '99

And we lived in the decade of the '80s – NOT the 80's.

If you want your writing to be professional, it is important to pay attention to these little details that will separate your writing from all the other grammatically incorrect ramblings that bounce around on the internet.

Source by Michelle L Devon

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