Is this tattoo correct?

[Puppychew]

A friend has just posted a picture of her tattoo on FB, am I correct in thinking their shouldn’t be any apostrophes?

The wording is-

Daddy’s Girl
Mama’s Angel

Wyatt an apostrophe is also to show possession. So if something belongs to someone, it would be Kate's bag because it belongs to Kate. There is an apostrophe that goes after an s but I can't quite remember the rule.

Wyatt - for it to be Kates' bag there'd have to be more than one Kate.

The apostrophe isn't just for missing letters. This is pretty helpfull*

Just remembered if it was James' bag then that's when the apostrope goes after the s I think, when the word ends in s?

The apostrophes are fine but their should be there!

Think about the apostrophe ‘s’ for possessions as being an abbreviation of ‘his’.
So you were going to say ‘Harry his wedding’ and it becomes ‘Harry’s wedding’.

Wyatt98765

Apostrophe can be in place of a missing letter as in:

are not = aren't

It can also denote possession as in:

Kate's bag

BUT

If you are saying that something belongs to something with an s on the end (most usually a plural group) then it goes on the end:

James' hat (James's hat)

I went to my parents' house (it isn't I went to my parent's house, because that implies you are going to the house of one parent)

It never implies a plural.

Apples = some apples, more than one
Apple's = belonging to the one singular apple
Apples' = belonging to the group of apples

HTH!

Just remembered if it was James' bag then that's when the apostrope goes after the s I think, when the word ends in s?

Although you can also say James's bag as well.

Wyatt98765

The apostrophe and s stand in for the word 'of'. The bag OF Kate. The son OF Susan. They become Kate's bag. Susan's son.

To add an s without an apostrophe is to pluralise a word. Kates' bag is only correct if the bag belongs to multiple people called Kate. In this case you can choose between the formally correct Kates's bag in which the first s pluralises the word Kate and the apostrophe and second s mean the bag belongs to them. Alternatively you can correctly shorten this to Kates' bag which looks and reads less awkwardly but means the same thing.

Lol at Muphry's law Was that deliberate?

I understand I am incorrect from what you are all saying here but can someone explain to me please why it isn’t ‘Kates’ bag’ and is ‘Kate’s bag’ - isn’t that saying ‘Kate is bag’?

Well, it could be saying either of those things, but since Kate is bag isn't a statement that anyone would make, you therefore know that it's saying the bag belonging to Kate. As Kates is the plural, Kates' bag would be the bag belonging to several people called Kate.

Apostrophes indicate possession as well as indicating missing letters.

If the subject is singular, the apostrophe goes before the s. E.g. Kate's bag.

If the subject is plural, the apostrophe goes after the s. E.g. The rabbits' carrots.

If a name ends in s you can either have an apostrophe after the s, or does s's. E.g. James' hat or James's hat. Most people have a preference as to what they like to use, but both are acceptable.

MissB you’re actually incorrect there regarding “Kates’s bag.”

Lol at Muphry's law grin Was that deliberate?

Muphry's Law states that any post on the internet criticising SPAG will have at least one unintentional SPAG error in it. So yes it will have been deliberate!

Thanks for the explanation! Hadn't heard that before

I've been doing possessive adjectives with my 7yo this week in fact, so I'm ideally placed to explain simply.

We can all do this when we speak without any difficulty.

The cats' bed is getting stinky. It's Dad's responsibility to clean it. The sheep's wool the cat dragged in from Mr James's field has gone weird.

I enjoyed watching the Duke and Duchess of Sussex's wedding on Saturday. Meghan's mother looked very happy.

Easy when you say it.

So the only problem is how to write it. And honestly that's easy if you don't think about it too hard.

Write the thing that does the owning:
the cats
Dad
sheep
Mr James
the Duke and Duchess of Sussex
Meghan

Then put an apostrophe (no space):
the cats'
Dad'
sheep'
Mr James'
the Duke and Duchess of Sussex'
Meghan'

Then read it back. Does it sound right? If not, add an s, then read it again to check.
the cats' (more than one cat)
Dad's
sheep's
Mr James's
the Duke and Duchess of Sussex's
Meghan's

The extra s may be pronounced "s" or "z" or "iz".

@MrsHathaway
Is that right about Mr James's - I always thought if the word ends in s then it's Mr James'
🤷‍♀️

But we don't say "mistuh jaymz", we say "mistuh jaymziz".

It used to be considered ugly to have an s both sides of the apostrophe. But that's stupid.

Acquaintance of mine has a grammatical error on one of her tattoos. She doesn't realise. I bite my lip every time I see it as I know the tattoo has enormous importance to her.
It's crazy though, as it's the lyrics from a song. Surely you'd double double check on line?!?

Of course the exception to the rule is its.
It's = it is
Its = belonging to it.

And just to confuse the issue if one child has a ball it would be “the child’s ball” but if the ball belonged to more than one child it would be “the children’s ball”, not “the childrens’ ball”.

I think the reason is the word “children” follows the rules for singular nouns, even though it represents more than one child.

Wyatt98765 - it's possessive - i.e. it shows that the bag belongs to Kate.

There could also be a situation where the exact same sentence means that Kate is a bag. Quite possibly someone said this while watching the Royal Wedding.....(not me to be clear)

Of course the exception to the rule is its.
It's = it is
Its = belonging to it.

True, but I was talking about the rule for nouns, and "it" isn't a noun but a pronoun.

String This is why I think it's unhelpful to get into singular and plural nouns because it's the sounds that matter, not the plurality or otherwise.

You add 's unless it sounds ridiculous when read aloud. That's the rule for making nouns possessive in English.

Applies to a car and a bus, to cows and to sheep, to Mr Smith and to Mr Jones equally.

The ONLY exceptions are Moses and Jesus because (1) we have biblical exceptions all over English and (2) they'd sound bloody stupid with an extra s.

"x" as last letter works the same as "s" so all previous examples using Sussex are incorrect.

For example "the hat that belongs to Jesus is Jesus' hat."
Works the same with Felix.