APOSTROPHE CATASTROPHE!

OK, everyone who spent their English lessons asleep (or flunked school completely), listen the fuck up! I'm getting increasingly annoyed at the amount of people who can't fathom the correct usage of the APOSTROPHE. It grates on me so much, I actually have to sit on my hands sometimes when on Facebook, to stop myself abruptly correcting someone, because they haven't got the foggiest clue where one goes and so they just put one any fucking where!! STOP. NOW.

To be honest, I'd rather people didn't use them at all if they don't know what they're for. To use an extreme example, it's like using a vibrator to whisk an egg or a saucepan to put on your thick head when it's raining. Generally in life, if you don't understand something, you either avoid it altogether, or make some attempt to educate yourself! Can we agree on that much? No-one can expect to be taken seriously or respected in a professional capacity if they can't even punctuate. So now I've got the shouting off my chest, I'll explain how it actually works.

The basic, everyday usage is not that complicated. (Not to undermine the poor apostrophe - it can get very complicated with certain compound nouns and plural possessives - but I'm going to keep it simple (and smutty) for beginners and those with a low boredom threshold.)

Now, let's begin. (Let's is an abbreviation of let us. Get it? That's a start, at least.)

LESSON ONE

The first use of the apostrophe is to signify possession, whereby we would place an apostrophe before the S. For example -

- The hooker's fake tits and slutty expression

- Coleen's blissful ignorance

- Wayne's lack of any common sense or discretion

Comprendez? (That means understand, in French.)

"Excuse me Miss, I don't understand!"

"It's OK Rooney, you're excused. Just go and fetch the ball."

When we make more than one of something or a group of people, like friends, into a possessive noun, we would place the apostrophe after the S. For example -

- His friends' wives thought it was rather amusing.

(Confusion sometimes arises when a word is used which is already plural. For example - if we were to say 'the woman's stupid husband', that's fairly straight forward. But, if we were talking about all of the England WAGS, we would say 'the women's stupid husbands.' In this case, unlike with 'friends', the apostrophe is placed before the S, because the word is already plural, before the S is placed.)

Are you still awake at the back??

LESSON TWO

Now, the second use of the apostrophe is when we omit letters to join together and shorten words. We put an apostrophe in place of the missing letters.

So, to shorten 'Even though he is ugly, we would definitely still give him one', we can say -

- 'Even though he's ugly, we'd definitely still give him one'.

Or to shorten 'I hate WAGS, they are a bunch of common gold-diggers with their perfect tits and fake hair', we can say -

- 'I hate WAGS, they're a bunch of common gold-diggers, with their perfect tits and fake hair'.

PLEASE NOTE - the difference in the last example, between they're and their. Do I need to go into this?! Oh, for the love of God...

- Their (belonging to them)

- There (as in 'there it is')

- They're (short for 'they are')

This is elementary! I don't care if you're dyslexic or just stupid - you have a fucking memory don't you??

INCORRECT AND TOTALLY MIND-BOGGLINGLY RIDICULOUS USE OF THE APOSTROPHE

Seriously, WHY?

We do NOT need an apostrophe to indicate that a word is plural (that is, that there is more than one of something) unless we are also indicating possession. For example, the following is WRONG!

'Did you see the photo's of Britney getting out of the car with no pant's on and her flap's hanging out?'

and so is this -

- 'Oops, I have burnt my vagina because I picked up my GHD's instead of my plug-in vibe'

Give me strength...

(Letter abbreviations and numbers do NOT require an apostrophe to be made plural. You might feel slightly disturbed at the thought of placing an S somewhere without an apostrophe, especially after a number, but you need to get over it because you're wrong! And ironically, you probably thought you were being clever. Haha. In your stupid dreams.)

Quite what possesses people to add an apostrophe, to signify there is more than one of something, or any time there's an S involved, I have NO idea. If you do this, next time you do - ask yourself, 'what purpose does that apostrophe serve, other than making me look like a complete twat?'

If you can't work it out, it's most probably because you are a complete twat.

Can you spot the mistake now? If not, you have nothing to smile about.

Now, go forth into the world and PUNCTUATE PROPERLY.