Practice Makes Perfect

The apostrophe is also used to form possessives. To make the meaning of a singular noun pos-

sessive, add -’s. For plural nouns that end in an -s, just add the apostrophe. All other plurals will

end in -’s.

Noun Possessive Form Meaning

boy the boy’s dog the dog that belongs to the boy

boys the boys’ games the games that belong to the boys

house the house’s roof the roof of the house

Tom Tom’s aunt an aunt of Tom’s

book a book’s pages the pages of a book

men the men’s work the work that the men do

If a word ends in an -s, you can add -’sto form the possessive when the pronunciation of the word

requires another syllable in the possessive:

Lois Lois’s

Thomas  Thomas’s

actress actress’s

If another syllable is not pronounced to form the possessive, just add an apostrophe; this tends

to be the case in the plural:

actresses actresses’

railings  railings’

classes classes’

It is common to use an apostrophe to form the plural of abbreviations: two Dr.’s, three M.D.’s, four

Ph.D.’s. The same is true when forming the plural of a number or letter: “You had better mind

your p’sand q’s.”

Rewrite each sentence and add apostrophes where they are needed.

1. The geeses eggs are well hidden.


2. She cant understand you.


3. Is Mr. Hancocks daughter still in college?


4. The two girls performance was very bad.


5. Ms. Yonans aunt still lives in Mexico.

exercise 12-5

Punctuation 73

04 (062-076) Units 10-13 11/3/04 1:41 PM Page 73