Grammar Police avoidance: part 1

The purpose of this post is to help those who often fall foul of the grammar police.

It shall be split into several sections, the first of which being a personal favourite of mine: the beloved apostrophe, and its use in a possessive context.

For this, I'm enlisting the help of the following imaginary people: Bob, Chris(tine) and several unnamed individuals.

Bob and Chris are both owners of quite a lot of stuff. Some of it is shared with others.

Let's say Bob has a car. Bob's car. Also referred to as his car. The car is his. Note the apostrophe for Bob, but the lack of one for "his".

Hang on. Who in their right mind would put an apostrophe in "his"? That's patently ridiculous. What on earth am I thinking? Oh well, let's move on.

Chris is the proud owner of a house. It's Chris's house. Her house. The house is hers. Again, only the one apostrophe (also note the trailing "s". The rule here is: if you say Chrises, you write it). Surely no-one would put an apostrophe in "hers" either. Silly me. Not worth mentioning.

Oh, did I mention Bob and Chris are married? So, what's his is hers, and what's hers is his. They share like that.

So a quick question: who can be said to own the car now? Or, put another way, the car belongs to whom? Whose car is it?

Well, it's their car. The car belongs to them. The car is theirs. Obvious. No apostrophes in sight.

OK. Here's the killer. The driveway where the car is parked can be said to belong to the house. It's my page. I can say what I like, so there.

So it is the house's drive. It owns the drive. The car is found on its drive. Any apostrophes? Curious.

So in summary: You wouldn't put one in "his", "hers", "theirs" or "whose". Don't put one in "its".

Of course, there is one (and only one) occasion where "it's" is valid, that being a contraction of "it is". This is just the same as there only being one valid use of "he's", "she's", "they're" and "who's".

Once more, in table form:

	Bob	Chris	Me	You	It	Male	Female	Plural	Question
The car belongs to ...	Bob	Chris	me	you	it	him	her	them	whom
... car	Bob's	Chris's	My	Your	Its	His	Her	Their	Whose
The car is ...	Bob's	Chris's	mine	yours	its	his	hers	theirs	whose?
... own(s) the car	Bob	Chris	I	You	It	He	She	They	Who
... in the car	Bob's (Bob is)	Chris's (Chris is)	I'm (I am)	You're (You are)	It's (It is)	He's (He is)	She's (She is)	They're (They are)	Who's (Who is)

If this is at all confusing, the golden rule is: IT'S = IT IS and never anything else.