Apostrophes and hyphens - tricky customers
Posted on 05 October 2011
By popular demand, here are the rules for hyphens:
To express the idea of a unit and to avoid ambiguity, compound nouns (nouns made of two words) and compound adjectives that go in front a noun should be hyphenated, like this:
- All-night party was a success
- The high-impact areobics was exhausting
However, if the same two words are placed after the noun, they would not need to be hyphenated, like this:
- The party went on all night
- She was exhauted because the aerobics was high impact
You also need a hyphen between the components of any number (including fractions) below one hundred that is written as two words, eg:
- Thirty-five
- Two-thirds
And put one in when a number is linked to a noun, like:
- The 1-day old baby
- A 3-day weekend
But you don't need one when the number isn't directly linked to a noun, for example:
- The baby was 1 day old
- The long weekend was 3 days long
And now for apostrophes ...
Use apostrophe, s ('s) to:
Indicate singular possessive:
- The girl's bicycle was red
- It was the shop's door that had been painted
Plural possessive:
- The showers are in the ladies' changing room
- The children's toys were broken
This is controversial, but some people say you should use apostrophe, s ('s) to form the plural of abbreviations with full stops, lowercase letters used as nouns, and capital letters that would be confusing if s alone were added:
M.A.'s and Ph.D.'s
x's and y's S's
A's, I's SOS's
But, when you can do it without creating confusion, use s alone to form the plural of letters, figures, words treated as words, and hyphenated words used as nouns:
- The three Rs
- Four 8s
- They came in twos
- the 1980s were better than the 70s
- No ifs or buts
And remember, the word its, does not have a possesive apostrophe - so you would never write:
The sun has got it's hat on
You would write:
The sun has got its hat on
Lesson over. Hopefully it's clear. If you have any requests for more, just ask.
Read more on punctuation:
http://oxforddictionaries.com/page/betterwritingpunctuation
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