Please teach me how to use the apostrophe correctly!

[notnowbernard]

Is there a special way of remembering?

I always get stuck with whether it's (for example)

brother's girlfriend

brothers girlfriend

or

girls' clothes

girls clothes

If you get what I mean (probably not)

GCSE English feels a long time ago now

someone will be along but in the meantime

it's
hasn't

are examples of an apostrophe instead of a missing letter

Susan's
Peter's
women's
horses' tails

are examples of the apostrophe used as possessive

in your examples:
my brother's girlfriend
my twin brothers' girlfriends

clothes for girls = girls' clothes

childrens ('s, s') gets me every time, I realise I am being thick. Cannot believe this stupid bit of pen-fluff deludes me.

children's
a child's

not being thick I think at all!

I know!

I consider myself a person with reasonable literacy skills, but the apostrophe gets me every time

Stuffitllama - thankyou. I think I generally get the 'apostrophe as missing letter' thing.

Apostrophe as possesive has and will continue to cause confusion!

The apostrophe was put there in early times to show that something has been left out. ie, John's bike is short for 'John his bike'. Also, Joan's cat would have been short for' Joan her cat'. The children's dog would have been short for 'the children their dog'.

All you need to remember with the possessive use is that the apostrophe goes after whoever owns what you happen to be talking about.

So if the ball belongs to Jack, the apostrophe goes after 'Jack' and you get Jack's ball.

If the children own the dog, the apostrophe goes after 'children' and you get the children's dog.

If the clothes belong to the ladies, the apostrophe goes after 'ladies' and you get the ladies' clothes.

Showofhands - Thankyou! That's what I was after!

A simple method for a simpleton

Well bloody done ShowOf. Perfect.

notnowbernard, if you're ebaying for example, you can say either 'girl's clothes' or 'girls' clothes', since they could be described as having belonged to a particular (singular) girl, or as having been made for (plural) girls.

and Run credits

Cheers

The fog is lifting

Ahh, sort of geddit. thanks stuffit etc

childrens' - ever a word??

or not because it is already plural. ie children.

the days of pena dn paper were easier - you could just ambigously float an apostrophe over the s!

(and of course you didn't write things like "pena dn paper")

Reverse the sentence to work out where it goes.

EG Simon's Tie - the tie of Simon
EG Girls' dresses - the dresses of Girls

So the apostrophe goes at the end of the reversed sentence.