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How to Use an APOSTROPHE
 In
English, apostrophes are only used for:
- Contractions
(like we're, they're, it's, don't).
- Possessive nouns
(but never possessive pronouns like his, her, hers,
theirs or its).
- Sometimes to
express a plural after initials or acronyms (e.g. CPA's, ID's,
PhD's).
- IMPORTANT: Normal plurals
never take an apostrophe! (E.g., the dogs, old houses, the ancient
Romans, seven sisters, delicious hamburgers, the Ayoubs live there, keeping up
with the Joneses, many El Pasoans.)
- For normal singular
possessive nouns (e.g. the student's house--the house of one student), the
apostrophe goes before the "s."
- For normal plural
possessives (e.g. the students' house--the house of two or more students)
the apostrophe goes after the "s."
- Some English plural nouns
have no "s", e.g. men, women, children. These take an apostrophe and an "s"
only in the possessive plural. (e.g. children's games; men's
health; women's rights).
- The possessive in words and names ending in
"s" or "z" normally takes an apostrophe
followed by an "s" (Gonzalez's, James's), but be guided by pronunciation and
use the plural apostrophe wherever it helps: Mephistopheles' rather than
Mephistopheles's.
- Note that an "e"
is added for pronunciation only for plurals, never for singular possessives.
(e.g., "the boss's dress," never "the bosses dress.")
And if anyone tries to tell you that apostrophes don't matter and we'd be
better off without them, consider these four phrases, each of which means something completely different:
my sister's friend's lovers,
my sisters' friends' lovers,
my sisters' friend's lovers,
my sister's friends' lovers.
Some of the text and the graphic above
are adapted from http://www.guardian.co.uk/styleguide/page/0,5817,184844,00.html
Graphic below from http://www.pewterkingdom.com/LastingExpressions.htm
(both reproduced for classroom use only)
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