SPEAKER: Language is about communication. When we write, we want our meaning to be clear and to avoid confusion. We have a number of tools to help us with that. We might call them the conventions of writing. 

One of the tools we have is punctuation, the marks on the page that aren't letters or words that help us to make our meaning clear. Today, we're going to talk about apostrophes. They're marks that sit well above the line, and they may look like this, or just a line. 

There are two main reasons we use apostrophes. They are for contractions and to show possession. And I'm going to go into what those words mean and give some examples. 

But do you notice how none of those reasons are for plurals or for multiples of things? We don't use apostrophes for plurals. I'll share some other things that are often mistaken for needing apostrophes later in the video. 

But first, let's talk about how we do use them. Let's start with contractions. You'll notice that I've got an apostrophe in "let's." That's because "let's" is a contraction. I could have written that sentence as "Let us start with contractions." 

Our language has contractions in it. That's when we take two words and join them together by getting rid of one or more letters. They're not compound words, where we just join two words together. 

"Let us" can become "let's." We got rid of the U. And to show that we got rid of something, we put an apostrophe. 

I will now give another example. I can contract "I" and "will" by getting rid of the "W" and "I" to make "I'll." There are plenty more of these. 

"I am" can become "I'm." "Will not" can become "won't." And that's a weird one because we also switch the "I" for an "O." "Who is" becomes "who's," "she is" becomes "she's," "I have" becomes "I've," and the list goes on, and on, and on. 

When we shorten two words by joining them together and getting rid of one or more letters, we get contractions. And they get an apostrophe where we've gotten rid of the letters. Then there's apostrophes to show possession. 

We start with a noun, which is a person, place, or thing. And that noun owns something or has something. We use an apostrophe to show that. Bear with me, because we'll see some examples. 

"The boy's shoes." The shoes that belong to the boy. We know that because there's an apostrophe. "The girl's hat," the hat that belongs to the girl. We know that because there's a possessive apostrophe after "girl," the person who owns something. 

Proper nouns also get these. "Australia's climate." "Jason's car." The noun gets an apostrophe. 

To show ownership or possession, we use a possessive apostrophe. However, there is an exception to the rule. We ignore apostrophes when it comes to pronouns. 

Pronouns are a kind of word we can swap out for a noun. The reason is mostly because often, a pronoun can be contracted, and it would cause confusion if we had possessive apostrophes and contraction apostrophes for pronouns. Let's take Jason's car. We can swap "Jason," the noun out for another word, "his." 

We're talking about "his car." No apostrophe. "Australia's climate," we can have "its climate." No apostrophe. There are lots of times we don't need apostrophes where people can get confused and just sprinkle them in anyway. But that makes their writing confusing. 

Let's talk about plurals. Plurals don't get apostrophes. I can talk about my cats. I have two cats. I could write down, "These are my cats." No apostrophe. 

If I did put an apostrophe, it becomes a contraction. "These are my cat is." And that makes no sense. Or it could show possession. "These are my two cat's." Cat's what? 

It doesn't make sense. When you have a plural, you don't give it an apostrophe. However, if the plural nouns possess something, like "My cats' food bowls," the food bowls that belong to my cats, both of my cats, I do give it an apostrophe. But to show that it's a plural and it also has possession, I put the apostrophe after the "S." "My cats' bowls." 

If the noun is already a plural, like "children," it gets an apostrophe S. "The children's school." If you add an "S" to make it plural, the apostrophe goes after the "S." "The girls' hats." 

But in short, there are two reasons we use apostrophes. They are when we have a contraction, like "isn't" or "can't," or to show possession, like in "The dog's collar" or "The boy's shoe." 

We don't use them for plurals. We don't need one every time we put an S at the end of a word, only if the word is part of a contraction, or if the word is in possession of something.