A lot of people I know have trouble with apostrophe use - even some teachers I know! This is just some basic rules to help you learn the proper grammar of the subject.

TIMES TO USE APOSTROPHES

For words that are shortened/combined, apostrophes are used. This is common knowledge for words such as 'don't' or 'you're.'

One confusing one that people mistake apostrophe use with is the word 'it.' The word 'it's' is a contraction meaning 'it is.' For a possessive use, there is no apostrophe, such as in the sentence "Its wings spanned an unbelievable 70 feet."

Plural words are occasionally written incorrectly with apostrophes when they should not be. The sentence "I ate my vegetable's" is incorrect; this would technically mean "I ate my vegetable is." This is incorrect. The correct use of this word would be to signify possession, something belonging to the vegetable, as in "The vegetable's color made it look like it had been rotten for months."


This is the basic rule of possessive nouns. If you have any questions about it, feel free to ask.