Abusing the Apostrophe

Don't use an apostrophe for pluralizing a word! Please, I'm begging you!

This is a grammar problem that needs to be addressed immediately.

This is the most prominent grammar problem I've seen lately. "Guy's" does not mean more than one guy, it means that either something that belongs to guy will be the next word or that Guy is something. It shouldn't be "you guy's are great," it should be "you guys are great." It can be "Guy's comb" or "Guy's a great guy." If it's plural and possessive, the apostrophe goes after the "s," as in "Guys' Room" for the men's bathroom.

In case you couldn't tell from reading this, apostrophes can also be used to form contractions, meaning that two words are joined into one. For example, at the beginning of this paragraph, "could" and "not" are joined by replacing the "o" in "not" with an apostrophe, resulting in "couldn't."

"Its" and "it's" are exceptions to the rules. "Its" is the proper possessive form, for example, "its eyes were yellow." "It's," on the other hand, means either "it is" or "it has" (in certain contexts). "It's" usually means "it is," as in, "it's hot today." "It's" can mean "it has" in phrases such as "it's been cold lately."

Finally, there are only two times you can use an apostrophe to pluralize.

The first is if you're referring to a number of the same letter. You're also supposed to use italics when you pluralize a letter unless it's a grade. Examples are "He has six e's in his name" (not a grade, so it's in italics) and "I got three A's on my report card" (referring to a grade, so it's not in italics).

The second is if you're referring to words as words while quoting (this one is weird, and hard to explain here).

For more grammar tips, please see http://www.english4today.com/englishgrammar/grammar/index.cfm
or
http://www.diannahacker.com/

Or, you can take English 101 at Hancock this summer.