Apostrophies

[peanut]

Ok, this has been bugging me long enough. In the sentence " I drove my car to joes house. " where exactly in the word joes does the apostrophy go? Every time I see a word like that the apostrophy is before the S no matter what context they are using the word. Last I knew, the apostrophy was there to take the place of a letter. So instead of joe is, one would write Joe's. But if I wanted to use my example setence, wouldn't the apostrophy go after the S?

[leonasmyth]

apostrophes are also used to show ownership, so in your example - Joe owns the house, therefore it is Joe's house

[peanut]

But shouldn't the apostrophy go after the s? If not, when would it go after the s?

[peanut]

Sill me, I should have googled it. One owner gets an 's, and more than one owner gets an s'

[peanut]

That's silly not sill.

[Ethel]

Peanut's got it!

But if there were a whole family of Peanuts - then the Peanuts' would have it. :)

[Clanad]

Or if Joe's name happened to be Les or any other name ending in 's' (other than pluaralization) the apostrophe would be placed at the end...

[pauliwauli2]

but don't forget! there is one exception - if you are saying something belongs to "it", you say "its" not "it's" !!

mistake i used to often make.

[Ethel]

Surely not, Clanad.


Les's house. Chris's football. James's car clearly shows the car belongs to James. If it were James' car it would belong to whole James family.

[Gef]

Poor Ethel doesn't have a clue.

[Hugh Spencer]

Ethel is right. Apostrophes are used to show possession or if two words are shortened, e.g. it is - it's, they are - they're. The car belongs to Alan - Alan's car, the car belongs to the Smiths - the Smiths' car.

[Rusks]

"Mistake I used to often make"
Neve split infinitives!
"Mistake I used to make often"!!! : )
Seeing as we're talking abou grammar!