Hi Sweetheart,
I’ve been thinking of telling you this for a while now. And not just you. It’s also addressed to two others. All three of you are fine writers. More, all three of you are people I love very much.
Maybe it’s my Virgo Venus, but I think that love that does not prove useful is… Well, it’s kind of useless, isn’t it? I can see some people shaking their heads and thinking love suffices in and of itself. Perhaps it does. But for me, if I’m not proving helpful in some way to people I love, I feel like I’m failing them. Which bring us to the use of apostrophes.
Now, I’m not saying I’m an expert on the subject, but I think I know the basics. In any case, I’ve borrowed some information from this site. Here it is:
“The apostrophe has three uses:
1. To form possessives of nouns
2. To show the omission of letters
3. To indicate certain plurals of lowercase letters”
You should go through that site. But I don’t know how good it is. I was taught that if a proper noun ends with an “s,” its possessive form should end with only an apostrophe. This site says even the apostrophe+s is acceptable for possessives of proper nouns.
I think most people are okay with apostrophes. They just stumble a bit when it comes to possessive pronouns. Possessive pronouns do not need apostrophes. Here is a list of possessive pronouns:
- Yours
- His
- Hers
- Its
- Ours
- Theirs
That’s it for me. All done. I’ve written it here instead of telling you directly because of what they say about Venus in Virgo. It’s perceived as being critical. I heard someone say recently, “Perception is fact.” Imagine alienating where you wish to please and serve. No wonder Venus is considered to be in her detriment in Virgo.
Oh, in case you misunderstand and think I’m patronizing you, I haven’t mastered punctuation, either! Commas defeat me. I’ve received some specialized training in punctuation and you’d think I could comma like an expert, but no. Neptune’s square to my Virgo Mercury is too powerful, or maybe I’m too mentally lazy to apply myself. But whatever it is, I’m not perfect, either.
So, anyways, here it is. A little post on apostrophes, offered with love.
Fond regards,
Venus in Virgo
To quote one of my favorite lines from Futurama… “Bureaucrat Conrad, you are technically correct, the best kind of correct.”
Hey from another Venus in Virgo! (It’s conjoined Pluto and conjunct Mercury, plus sextile Neptune and Jupiter – and I write for a living!) Anyway, you might enjoy this piece I saw last week on The Oatmeal site, on how to use that most feared of punctuation: the semicolon.
http://theoatmeal.com/comics/semicolon
Thanks for the link, Leslee!
Lovely poetry, Neeti.
I had the feeling it was written specially for me. Very beautiful. To continue to play the game from FB on putting a little word back on the big one, I offer this twist, O Venus in Virgo. Useful Love: use/ful (ly) your love.
Dear Venus in Virgo with your specialized education in punctuation. Help!!!
I’m great with apostrophes, and OK with commas, but the quotation mark at the end of a sentence still baffles me (Catholic education and all.) All right, I also don’t understand where the parenthesis goes either.
I guess it’s the same question: does the quotation mark or parenthesis go after the period at the end of the sentence or before?
Example: Neeti Ray says, “Commas defeat me.” Is that always correct?
Or: The quotation mark at the end of a sentence still baffles me (Catholic education and all.) Is this correct? Always?
If you can answer, I promise I’ll never make the mistake again. Well, I’ll try.
Ellen, what I was taught about end punctuation and quotes was that the end punctuation always goes inside the quote:
E.g. And then he said, “Stop!”
Parenthesis: I wonder about this myself. This wasn’t covered in my training and I haven’t looked it up. I tend to put them outside, but that’s just a personal choice: makes more sense to me that way.
And about the end punctuation and quotes, I don’t know if British and American English treat them the same way. I think a good place for stuff like this is the Associated Press Stylebook.
I don’t know enough, either
It’s my Venus ✌