It is one of the greatest challenges of a writer to get the grammar and spelling of words and sentences right. That is why editors do so well in the industry – helping writers to get everything right the first time. One of the most common challenges, however, is writing possessive nouns. This is almost an acquired skill as there are various rules connected to the use of possessive nouns – rules that can e very confusing if you don’t pay close attention.
The reason why we have possessive nouns is to indicate ownership. The noun describes the person or thing, while the apostrophe “s” (‘s) is intended to indicate the ownership / possession of the thing it is referring to. It doesn’t have to be a material thing that is referred to by the “’s”. Attitudes, emotional states etc. are also referred to by using a possessive noun.
You often find yourself wondering how to write a possessive noun and when and where to append the “’s”. It’s not always as simple as it seems and the rules are not always well-known. It is, however, extremely important to get it right to avoid confusing your reader or losing the meaning of your sentence to a stray apostrophe.
You also need to know when you’re dealing with a possessive noun. The rule of thumb is that you should turn the sentence / word into a “of the …” phrase, e.g. The cat’s toy = The toy of the cat; Peter’s attitude = the attitude of Peter; the policeman’s mistake = the mistake of the policeman etc.
The question of how to write possessive nouns is quite easy to answer, but infinitely more difficult to implement.
(more…)
