Glossary: apostrophe

The apostrophe, written ', is one of the 9 main punctuation marks in English.

Apostrophes have two completely different uses:

• showing the place of missing letters (e.g. I'm for I am)
• marking possessives (e.g. Hannah's mother)

• I'm going out and I won't be long. [showing missing letters]
• Hannah's mother went to town in Justin's car. [marking possessives]