Transition to American Academic English

Words Ending in S

American Academic English is extremely confusing. One reason is that we have identical written structures to mean different, unrelated things. Another reason is that some of these structures depend on punctuation which you cannot hear. Yet another reason is that some of these forms seem unnecessary if you are coming from another language.

English sticks an S on the ends of words for several different reasons, and some of these (but not all of them) require an apostrophe.

Third person singular regular verb

• First person singular: "I walk."
• Second person singular: "You walk."
• Third person singular: "He walks." "She walks." "It walks."
  • This form never takes an apostrophe.
• First person plural: "We walk."
• Second person plural: (This one doesn't really exist in English; we usually just use second person singular here.)
• Third person plural: "They walk."

Plural nouns

Formal American English always requires a spelling change for for plural nouns. Plain plural never takes an apostrophe.

• One boy, two boys
• Sixteen freight cars (Note that we need the "s" even with the number, and "freight" did not get pluralized.)

This spelling change is required even if the result is difficult to pronounce:

• Six scientists worked on the project.

Some irregular nouns form a plural by changing something inside the word. These do not take a "s" on the end.

• One goose, many geese
• One man, two men
• One woman, three women
  (Many Americans have trouble with this one because "women" is not pronounced as it is spelled.)

Possession

Some languages show possession by position in the sentence or by context. Formal American English always requires the spelling change.

These forms do take an apostrophe. This causes three problems. First, apostrophes do not make any sound, so you cannot write these "by ear." Second, the apostrophe moves to show whether the noun is singular possessive or plural possessive (but the two forms sound identical). Third, irregular nouns which form their plurals by changing letters inside the word form possession the same way singular nouns do.

• Regular singular possessive noun: The boy's baseball. (One boy owns it)
• Regular plural possessive noun: The boys' baseball. (Owned by more than one boy—but this sounds the same as singular possessive!)
• Irregular singular possessive noun: The man's baseball. (One man owns it)
• Irregular plural possessive noun: The men's baseball. (Owned by more than one man)

Two non-problems

Contractions

Many contractions take the form of word+apostrophe+s.

• The apostrophe is required in contractions. The spelling checker will not always catch the error when you leave it out.
• Contractions are actually somewhat informal and are not often acceptable in formal business/academic English.
• Some contractions sound exactly like other words (you're and your, they're and their for example).

You can stay out of trouble by using full spelling in all formal writing.

• Nobody would confuse will not with wont.
• Nobody would confuse you are with your or they are with their.

Just spelled that way

Some words (particularly personal names) just have an s on the end. They do not take an apostrophe.

• Paul McHenry Roberts, not Paul McHenry Robert's
• Brent Staples, not Brent Staple's (you would not write Bren't for his first name)

Possession causes trouble with names that end in "s." The grammar world is still undecided about these (though APA style always requires apostrophe+s). With some exceptions (usually biblical persons), we usually go with name+apostrophe+s just as we would with any other noun.

• Bob's car
• Roberts's article

If that last one sounds weird, you have two answers. One is that written English is not the same as spoken English. The other is that you can write around it: "The article by Roberts."

An alternative you often see leaves off the final s (but it still sounds weird because we really say "Robertses"). Pick one style and stick with it. If you are writing in APA style, use the one above, but you will often see this as well:

• Roberts' article