The abused apostrophe.

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June 20, 2010

This little instrument is used to show possession or contraction. Sometimes it is used to eliminate confusion. That's it. These days, however, it's showing up in all sorts of places, an uninvited grammatical guest. I even noticed its (yes, "its", not "it's") misuse in iTunes, with the playlist title "90's music". Whoops.

Here are examples of right and wrong usage.

Wrong usage: "He never realized the extent of it's misuse until the 90's."

Right usage: "He never realized the extent of its misuse until the '90s."

Wrong usage: "She bought three boxes of CD's."

Right usage: "She bought three boxes of CDs."

If you want a full explanation, just visit:

http://www.grammarbook.com/punctuation/apostro.asp