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Course: Grammar > Unit 6
Lesson 4: Apostrophes and contractionsApostrophes and plurals
There is *one* extremely rare case in which we use apostrophes to make things plural. David and Paige, KA's resident grammarians, discuss this unusual case.
Want to join the conversation?
- So maybe I'm off target here, but another situation to use an apostrophe to pluralize, is to pluralize ownership. like for example "They are playing in the boys' room."(14 votes)
- Yes, you're correct - the position of the apostrophe can be used to denote either singular or plural possession.
Singular possession
- possessive noun is singular
- apostrophe is placed before the s
Plural possession
- possessive noun is plural
- apostrophe is placed after the s
Some examples:
- This Boy's Life: A Memoir (singular; about one boy)
- Boys' Life magazine (plural; for all boys)
- dog's journey (singular; one dog)
- dogs' journey (plural; group of dogs)
- violin's tone (singular; one violin)
- violins' tone (plural; many violins)
- bird's song (singular; one bird)
- birds' song (plural; more than one bird)
Hope this helps!(45 votes)
- my brain is getting smaller by the second(8 votes)
- That happens as we age, especially after our 60th birthdays.(13 votes)
- why does Paige say you can learn anything?(0 votes)
- Did Paige just take David's role?(1 vote)
- NOBODY can replace the incomparable David Rheinstrom. Remember that.(12 votes)
- Would i want to use an apostrophe for time frame like the 40s(4 votes)
- Yes, you could use an apostrophe to abbreviate 1940s to '40s.
See how the apostrophe replaces the "19" part? That's how you remember where to put it.
1940s ---> '40s
Here are some more examples:
- Bell-bottoms were popular back in the '70s.
- Most films from the '50s are black and white.
- My uncle Alex gave me his vintage Nintendo from the '80s.
Hope this helps!(6 votes)
- bro needs a raise(5 votes)
- day one of tryna to get David / Paige to comment(3 votes)
- David Rheinstrom wrote this course and made almost every video you see here between 2014 and 2016. Then he moved on to other projects at Khan Academy.
During the summer of 2016, Paige Finch, a young student from the University of California spent 3 months working for and with David to learn how to make videos and teach online.
In September of 2016, Paige returned to the University of California. In 2018, she graduated with a degree in Linguistics. Now she is an independent video producer in the Bay Area of California.
David eventually moved to Washington, D.C. where he works on many different things, some of which are connected to Khan Academy.
You can stop now in your effort to get either of them to respond. They've been gone for 8 years.(5 votes)
- why you maken fun of it(1 vote)
- but I wanna dot my is :((3 votes)
- Mam what is correct
dinosaurs'
dinosaurs
dinosaur's(1 vote)- Any of those can be correct, depending on the context in which it is used.
“Dinosaurs” is just a plural noun, meaning it refers to more than one dinosaur. For example: “The dinosaurs went mostly extinct around 66 million years ago.”
“Dinosaur’s” is singular possessive, meaning it talks about something that belongs to just one dinosaur. For example: “This dinosaur’s tail was two feet long.”
“Dinosaurs’” is plural possessive, meaning it talks about something that belongs to more than one dinosaur. For example: “Many dinosaurs’ brains were adapted to process a lot of information from their sense of smell.”
Does that help?(5 votes)
Video transcript
- [Paige] Hello Grammarians, Hello David. - [David] Hello Paige. - [Paige] So today, we're gonna talk about apostrophes and plurals. We talked about this a little bit in our Introduction to the Apostrophe video. This is a very, very rare case,
where we use an apostrophe to show that something is plural, and it almost never happens, but we will explain when it does. - [David] Paige, when is the one time in this immense and
wonderful galaxy of English when the stars align
for it to be permissible to pluralize something with an apostrophe? - [Paige] That one time is
when you are pluralizing a lower case letter. If you're saying something
like, "You need to remember " to always dot your i's,"
where you're talking about the letter I, and there
are several of them, you're gonna put an
apostrophe before the S. - [David] OK, so that's to
prevent it from looking like is, right, 'cause if we didn't
have that apostrophe in there, it would just be the word is. There's no way to tell I's
from the word is in that case. - [Paige] Right, and
you need to remember to always dot your is,
doesn't make any sense. - [David] Right. - [Paige] This apostrophe can look like it's making the letter I possessive, but it's really just there
to make it clear that this is a plural I and not is. - [David] So this is the only case. If it were upper case letters, you wouldn't do this, right. If you were saying David's capital As look like trees. It's less likely that
you're gonna gonna confuse capital A, lower case S in
the middle of a sentence for the word as. - [Paige] Right, 'cause you
wouldn't just capitalize the word as in the middle of a sentence. - [David] Right. So this is for only lower case letters, the little ones, the inside voice. (laughing) Paige, that's it, right?
- [Paige] Yeah. - [David] That's the only exception, that's the only time you use apostrophes to form the plural, no other time. So if you're talking
about, doesn't matter, if you're talking about CDs, or DVDs, or MP3s, or whatever you kids are
listening to these days, it doesn't matter, there's no need for an apostrophe in any of these places. - [Paige] Right, 'cause
that's pretty clear. - [David] You just use a lower case S, but if you're trying to talk about multiple lower case letters,
then you use an apostrophe. - [Paige] Yeah, so if
you're trying to figure out how to make something
plural, and you're like, "Do I use an apostrophe?" No, unless it's a lower case letter. You can learn anything. - [David] David out. - [Paige] Paige out.