In French, to show that someone possesses something, you use their word for “of,” which is “de”: La plume de ma tante. Spanish works the same way: La venganza de Moctezuma. Italian, too: Buca di Beppo ...

Apostrophes are the curly floating commas in sentences that usually indicate possession or a contraction. There are a few set phrases and holidays, however, that also use apostrophes. In fact, ...

Those of us who respect and appreciate proper apostrophe usage awoke yesterday to some upsetting news: John Richards, one of the most ardent defenders of the correct use of the apostrophe, is giving ...

Mark Twain’s encounter with a particular foreign tongue inspired an essay called “The Awful German Language.” Welcome to a new feature of this column. We won’t call it “The Awful English Language.” ...

It's about time for our possessives to do a reverse Pluto. Pluto, you know, used to be a planet. Then it got demoted. This is like a word being turned into a prefix or suffix. Well, my ...

Imagine writing an email to your family, friends or colleagues without using a single apostrophe. Sound painful? The punctuation mark is so engrained in the English language that knowing how to use it ...

Apostrophes are strange little creatures that can cause two words to merge. Uh huh! The apostrophe takes the place of the removed letters. This is how it contracts the two words together. It can't be ...