Eats, Shoots and Leaves. Lynne Truss

which would have had the regrettable result of making people sound a) a bit stupid, b) a bit drunk, or c) a bit from the West Country.

      So what are the jobs an apostrophe currently has on its CV? Before we start tearing out our hair at sloppy, ignorant current usage, first let us acknowledge the sobering wisdom of the Oxford Companion to English Literature: “There never was a golden age in which the rules for the possessive apostrophe were clear-cut and known, understood and followed by most educated people.” And then let us check that we know the rules of what modern grammarians call “possessive determiners” and “possessive pronouns” – none of which requires an apostrophe.

       Possessive determiners

my	our
your	your
his	their
her	their
its	their

       Possessive pronouns

mine	ours
yours	yours
his	theirs
hers	theirs
its	theirs

      And now, let us just count the various important tasks the apostrophe is obliged to execute every day.

      1 It indicates a possessive in a singular noun:

      The boy’s hat

      The First Lord of the Admiralty’s rather smart front door

      This seems simple. But not so fast, Batman. When the possessor is plural, but does not end in an “s”, the apostrophe similarly precedes the “s”:

      The children’s playground

       The women’s movement

      But when the possessor is a regular plural, the apostrophe follows the “s”:

      The boys’ hats (more than one boy)