Apostrophes, Dashes, and Hyphens

Apostrophe for Odds and Ends

• Awkward Plurals• I have three CPA’s in my family who made

fortune selling tax preparation CD-ROM’s• Though I made four A’s and four B’s, I’m more

proud of the two 5’s and three 4’s on my AP Tests. (Spell out numbers=no apostrophes.)

• My parents were born in the 1940’s (or 1940s)• 5 o’clock

Missing Letters

• Contractions: Can’t, Won’t, etc.

• Can be used for dialect. Mark Twain wrote the novel Puddin’ Head Wilson.

• I’m goin’ to ask you one more time.

Possessives

• Singular Possessives Bill’s book. A children’s story.

• Mr. Jenkins’ book

Dashes

• Used for dramatic separation.

• It was my greatest joy—watching her eyes sparkle on her birthday.

• You need to know—and I mean this in the nicest way possible—that your breath stinks.

Hyphens

• Compound Adjectives: self-destructive behavior. Well-cooked steak.

• Not…The steak is well cooked.• Relation Names: great-aunt• Usually self- and quasi- will have hyphens• Fractions: a two-thirds majority. • Not…I own two thirds of the property in

Charlotte.• Use with ex-, and when adding to a proper

noun (pro-American).

Avoid Awkwardness

• For recreation, my father does re-creations of Civil War Battles.

• After we recovered the storm, we had to re-cover the chairs.

• Back-to-back vowels: anti-imperialism