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To: The KG9 Kid

I will - the apostrophe is used to indicate the possessive, it is not used to make a noun plural.
Examples of the possessive are: “in England’s green and pleasant realm”, or “the cat’s meow”, or “tell who cleft the devil’s foot”. The word “of” is implied with the possessive: the realm of (belonging to) England; the meow of the cat; the foot of the devil.
The apostrophe is also used to indicate a contraction, or a dropped letter: can’t for cannot; wouldn’t for would not; it’s for it is. Many here at FR confuse the contraction for “it is” for the preposition “its”, which belongs in the same category as his, hers, ours and theirs. So you write, “it’s raining in my heart” to describe what is happening, and “when the disease reaches stage four, its prognosis is terminal.”
The apostrophe is never used to make a noun plural. If we write about the Nazis, the Clintons, the Kennedys, the Obamas - an S is added to the end of the name. In writing the plural of a common noun, like dog, boy, car, just add an S: dogs, boys, cars. If the noun ends in a Y, like gypsy, you drop the y and add IES - gypsies.


56 posted on 07/24/2013 8:30:23 AM PDT by kabumpo (Kabumpo)
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To: kabumpo
If the noun ends in a Y, like gypsy, you drop the y and add IES - gypsies.

Oh, like attorneies?

[Ducking!]

89 posted on 07/24/2013 11:19:57 AM PDT by Cyber Liberty (Justice for Trayvon: Dig up his body and shoot him again.)
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