Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Rusty Shackleford]

I'm a grammar neophyte, so can someone please tell me why this is so.....

1. My uncle's good at basketball. WRONG?

2. He's good at basketball. RIGHT?

In 1. the apostrophe should only be used for possessive, referring to the noun?

In 2. the apostrophe should be used as it is a pronoun?

Please don't tear shreds off my bad grammar. I can use big words in English, good.

[climber159]

In your example, "He's" is a contraction of "He" and "is". Why can't you do that with "Uncle" and "is"? As far as I know, "Uncle" plus "is" is a perfectly acceptable contraction.

[billietea]

Understanding and using the possessive apostrophe is fairly easy. Look and you will see two nouns next to one another in a possessive situation. Look at the last of the two nouns and if it doesn't end in "s" add an apostrophe "s". If it does end in "s" simply add the apostrophe before the "s". Note that some writers believe that if the noun ends in "s" then the apostrophe should come after the "s". Depending on which publishing style you chose, or are required to utilize, it will be one or the other, but never both.

Possessive pronouns such as: yours, its, his, ours, hers and theirs should not have apostrophes added to them as they already signal possession.

The use of apostrophes for possessive purposes should not be confused with the use of apostrophes to link pronouns with auxiliary verbs, e.g., I'll for "I will".

Check out this link and see if it helps clarify the apostrophe rule. http://www.eng-lang.co.uk/apostrophe_rules.htm

[ontheway]

My uncle is good at basketball. My uncle's good at basketball.


Same meaning. Both are correct.


noun + is = noun's This is the general rule.


The dog is in the house. The dog's in the house.

The Korean English teacher is wrong. The Korean English teacher's wrong.

[winterfall]

[thegadfly]

"My uncle's good at basketball..." is correct but unclear...so, to clarify, one would usually use the apostrophe s for the possessive, and write out the contraction for the non-possessive.... I would call it amphibology, but perhaps others might argue that it isn't a true example....

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amphibology

[ontheway]

There is no ambiguity:

"My uncle's good at basketball."

It is clear that this means "uncle is."


"This is my uncle's basketball."

It is clear that this is the possessive.



Both uses of "uncle's" are correct and both meanings are clearly discernable in use.


"My uncle's driving my aunt's car.

Simple. Easy to understand. Correct.