Apostrophe’ &

Semicolon ;
 Apostrophes ( ’ ) are mainly used in two situations:
(a)
 to show contractions
 He’s the leading authority
 *Please note, contractions are not common in academic
English.
(b)
 with possessives
 The professor’s secretary (singular)
 Students’ marks (plural)
 The apostrophe mark (') has three main uses in English:
• To make contractions
• To make nouns and some pronouns possessive
• To make letters of the alphabet plural
 Contractions

 An apostrophe shows where letters are missing in a

contraction.
 isn't is not won't will not
 she's she is OR she has they're they are
 it's it is they'd they had OR they would
 Contractions are used in conversation and in informal writing
such as letters to friends. Therefore, avoid its use in formal
academic and business writing.
 Possessives
 Possessive words show ownership. In the phrase Maria 's
book, Maria 's is a possessive
 noun showing that Maria is the owner of the book.
 In English, ownership can be demonstrated with nouns in two
ways-
 Either by using the phrase: the name of my friend, or by using
an apostrophe + s: my friend's name.
 the speed of the runner OR the runner's speed
 the orders of the doctor OR the doctor's orders
 the complaints of my neighbor OR my neighbor's complaints
 In general, an apostrophe or an apostrophe + s is used more
often when the owner is a living being, and the of phrase is
used more often when the owner is a nonliving thing. We
prefer, for example, to say the dog 's leg but the leg of the
table. Sometimes you can write a possessive either way:
 The bank's president or the president of the bank.
• When the owner's name is given, there is no choice. In that
case, use an apostrophe or apostrophe + s.
 Maria's book NOT the book of Maria
 the Smiths' house NOT the house of the Smiths
• Besides nouns, we also make indefinite pronouns
possessive. Indefinite
 pronouns are the words someone, anyone, somebody,
anybody, everyone,
 everybody, no one, nobody, and
 someone's jacket
 anybody's mistake
 Rules for Forming Possessives-

 Add an Apostrophe + s:
*to singular nouns.
 Example-
 child's toy/boss's office
 Mr. and Mrs. Smith's house/Mr. and Mrs. Jones's children
* To plural nouns that don't end in s
 Example-
 children's game/ men's shirts/ women's dresses  
Rules for Forming Possessives- Continued

*to indefinite pronouns.

Example-
 someone's jacket/ nobody's fault

*to abbreviations.
Example-
 NAFTA's success/ the UN's members
 2. Add an Apostrophe Alone  
 to plural nouns ending in s.
 engineering students'
 club actresses' performances
 the Smiths' house
Plural of Letters of the Alphabet
 Use an apostrophe + s to make letters of the alphabet plural.
Example-
 The teacher gave ten A's and two D's last semester. 
 Caution!
 Don't confuse it's and its. It 's is a contraction of it is. Its is a possessive
pronoun. Possessive pronouns (my, your, our, his, her, its, their) never have
apostrophes.
Example-
 It's hot today. The book lost its cover.
 Don't confuse the contraction of a noun + is as the possessive form of the
noun.
 John's sick today. (John is sick today.)
 John's car is a Toyota. (The car that belongs to John is a Toyota.)
Don't use an apostrophe to make nouns plural.
Example-
 The Smitlil’s have a new baby daughter.
 Semi-colons ( ; ) are used:
* to show the link between two connected phrases, when a
comma would be too weak and a full stop too strong.
Example-
 20 people were interviewed for the first study; 33 for the
second.  
 *Semi-colons are also used to divide up items in a list when
they have a complex structure, as in a multiple citation:
 (Maitland, 2006; Rosenor, 1997; New Scientist, 2006b;
University of Michigan, 2000).
 The semicolon (;) has only one major use. It is used to join
two complete sentences into a single written sentence when
all of the following conditions are met:
 (1) The two sentences are felt to be too closely related to be
separated by a full stop
 (2) There is no connecting word which would require a
comma, such as and or but;  
 Here is a famous example:  
 It was the best of times; it was the worst of times.
 A semicolon can always, in principle, be replaced either by a
full stop (yielding two separate sentences) or by the word and
(possibly preceded by a joining comma).
 Thus Dickens might have written:
  It was the best of times. It was the worst of times. or
 It was the best of times, and it was the worst of times.
 The use of the semicolon suggests that the writer sees the two smaller
sentences as being more closely related than the average two consecutive
sentences; preferring the semicolon to and often gives a more vivid sense of
the relation between the two. But observe carefully: the semicolon must be
both preceded by a complete sentence and followed by a complete
sentence. Do not use the semicolon otherwise:
  *I don't like him; not at all.
 *In 1991 the music world was shaken by a tragic event; the death of Freddy
Mercury.
 *We've had streams of books on chaos theory; no fewer than twelve since
1988.
 *After a long and bitter struggle; Derrida was awarded an honorary degree
by Cambridge University.
 What do you think?
 Here are some further examples of correct use:  
 Tolkien published The Hobbit in 1937; the first volume of The
Lord of the Rings followed in 1954.
 The Cabernet Sauvignon grape predominates in the Bordeaux
region; Pinot Noir holds sway in Burgundy; Syrah is largely
confined to the Rhone valley.
 Women's conversation is cooperative; men's is competitive.
 Note, however, that certain connecting words do require a
preceding semicolon. Chief among these are however, therefore,
hence , thus, consequently, nevertheless and meanwhile:
 Saturn was long thought to be the only ringed planet; however, this
is now known not to be the case.
 The two warring sides have refused to withdraw from the airport;
consequently aid flights have had to be suspended.
 Observe that in these examples the sequence after the semicolon
does constitute a complete sentence. And note particularly that the
word however must be separated by a semicolon (or a full stop)
from a preceding complete sentence.
 There is one special circumstance in which a semicolon may be used to
separate sequences which are not complete sentences. This occurs when a
sentence has become so long and so full of commas that the reader can
hardly be expected to follow it without some special marking. In this case,
semicolons are used instead of commas to mark the most important
breaks in the sentence.
 Consider the following example:
 In Somalia, where the civil war still rages, western aid workers, in spite of
frantic efforts, are unable to operate, and the people, starving, terrified
and desperate, are flooding into neighbouring Ethiopia.
 What do you think?
 This sentence is perfectly punctuated, but the number of
commas is somewhat alarming. In such a case, the comma
marking the major break in the sentence may be replaced by a
semicolon:

 In Somalia, where the civil war still rages, western aid

workers, in spite of frantic efforts, are unable to operate; and
the people, starving, terrified and desperate, are flooding into
neighbouring Ethiopia.