Might be worth saying, if you want to see about apostrophes for possession, go to April 15th 2008. This is the one about the other use for apostrophes...

...and it's actually really simple: the apostrophe is just put in in place of some missing letters. Sometimes we want to merge two words together to make it easier to say or read something. For example, instead of saying do not go there we might say don't go there. In this example, and in most examples, nothing changes about the original words other than a letter is missed out and the words are squashed together into one word. Sometimes more than one letter is missed out and very occasionally there are changes to the spelling of the original words*. Here are some examples of the change:

do not...donot...don't
must not...mustnot...mustn't
have not...havenot...haven't
It is...itis...it's
cannot...(no merge - one word already)...can't
I will...Iwill...I'll
would have...wouldhave...would've
will not...willnot...won't*

The blue letters are the ones that get missed out and replaced with an apostrophe.

You will notice that I have included it's in the list above. Only put an apostrophe in the word 'its' if you are saying 'it is' in a shortened way. That is all you need to know. If you are saying 'its' to mean that something belongs to 'it' you DO NOT need an apostrophe. Here are some correct examples:

Its main advantage is that it goes faster.
Its tyres are bald.
It's a shiny red car.

For some reason there is a big debate going on in the world right now about semi-colons. It's not just the usual about what to do with them but whether they should exist or not which I find faintly bizarre...they do exist! Even if someone tells me they don't exist, I will still use them.

Maybe this is because I'm a teacher and feel that it is necessary to say the same thing in three different ways to ensure that I have imparted knowledge thoroughly enough: semi-colons are there to link two sentences (or would-be sentences?) that are closely related to each other. So I might want to say: Semi-colons are cool. All the gangstas are using them. Well, the second statement confirms the first so that's pretty strongly related...you might as well use a semi-colon: Semi-colons are cool; all the gangstas are using them.

There's no rule about how exactly the sentences have to be related...I don't think! There are a few examples below of sentences that are linked in different ways just to give you a feel. I wouldn't say that you ever have to use a semi-colon. You would just use one having made the decision to communicate to your readers that those two sentences were related.

Some examples:

• The goldfish came home from the vets'* today; it had been there for a week.
• Her hairstyle is freaky; I don't think it's normal to have snakes' heads on the end of each hair.
• The effects on the goldfish population were monumentally catastrophic; there has never been such a serious dip in the population.

The other time to use semi-colons is in a list when you need to use commas to describe the things you're listing. (This is ringing a bell...have I posted about this before?) For example: My favourite films are Finding Nemo; Jaws, the all-time classic; and Shark Tale. It just helps make it all a bit clearer. And cleariness is next to godliness in Grammar World.

I do feel like I'm missing something, bearing in mind that there's a global debate about this. Am I? Have I got it all wrong? I haven't consulted anyone/anything about it since my GCSEs 10 years ago.

*I'm assuming this was a practice run by several vets.

Well, it's better now so not worse than ever but still not finished!

Just undergoing some refurbishments here! Sorry that it looks worse than ever but Toby is working some wonders to make it look great. He's a love.

Well hello again.

We'll do contractions (e.g. contracting 'do not' to 'don't') another day.

For now it's what to do when something/someone owns something/someone:

Jane's porridge (single owner = apostrophe before the extra 's')
All of the boys' porridge (more than one owner = apostrophe after the already existing 's'. No further 's' required.)
The children's porridge ('the children'* make up a single group so, like with Jane who is a single person, there is an apostrophe before the extra 's')

Just ask yourself, "Who/what does _______ belong to?" After the last letter of your answer to that question, put the apostrophe. Add an extra 's' if you need an 's' sound. It's up to you whether you bother if you don't need an extra 's' sound; both Jesus' porridge and Jesus's porridge are legitimate.

A couple of tricksy areas:
1. Sometimes you will see apostrophes that aren't there because of contractions and seem to be nothing to do with anyone owning anything. Think laterally: The kids' performance 'belonged' to the kids. Last week's news 'belonged' to last week.
2. You do not need to worry about how many things are owned. You do need to worry about how many owners there are.

This is something that people do find hard so why do we have to bother? As with all grammar/punctuation it is supposed to make something seem clearer. For example, the apostrophe could clarify that there was more than one boy in the porridge scenario. Or it could clarify that the porridge wasn't made out of boys but belonged to boys. The context normally makes it obvious but the punctuation does help. In some cases, especially in officialdom, the punctuation can be essential for resolving disputes about the original meaning of something. I think that is the way of it in the legal world.

*'Children' is a collective noun. The same applies for other collective nouns such as 'team' or 'government'...or a 'bloat of hippopotami' for you collective noun lovers.

After a nice little comment on a post I feel encouraged to post again. But what about?

Maybe apostrophes because they are a problem. I'll just go and check I haven't done one on that already (although how?) and then I'll log into Firefox (no little formatting icons on Safari) and then I'll BE BACK!

Peace.