It’s a language that’s not easy to learn, especially the written version. Even native speakers of English find it hard to grasp the finer points of the written language. There are rules galore, some that don’t seem to make sense at all. But that’s just on the surface; when you look deep enough, you’ll see the underlying pattern beneath all the confusion and randomness on top.

Let’s take the apostrophe for instance; its use is one of the most debated and argued in the English language. People are confused as to when it should make an appearance and when it should take a hike. The most common confusion is the one that deals with possession, or in simpler terms, the usage of the apostrophe with the word “its”. When should there be an apostrophe between the t and the s?

There’s a simple enough rule that you can follow in order to get your apostrophe in the right position – If the “s” in “its” is a shortened form for the word “is”, then the apostrophe is inserted between the “it” and the “s”. For example, instead of saying, “It is raining”, I could say, “It’s raining”. The apostrophe replaces the “i” in “is”. This rule can be extended to any other combination of words in English – “there are” becomes “there’re”, “they have” becomes “they’ve”, “cannot” becomes “can’t” and “there is” becomes “there’s”. So the next time you’re tempted to use this little punctuation mark, check to see if it’s replacing a letter or a couple of letters in the alphabet.

Another place where the apostrophe finds use is when you’re denoting possession. For example, if you want to emphasize that the book belongs to Harry, you would say, “Harry’s book”. Exceptions to this rule come into play when you’re using the word “it” – you cannot say “The flower opens it’s petals early in the morning”. The right version would be “The flower opens its petals early in the morning”.

One place where you never use the apostrophe is when you’re denoting plurals. You cannot say “two apple’s” or “nine book’s”. But if you’re denoting possession of a plural, the apostrophe comes after the final “s”, like in the sentence “The writers’ books were all scattered”.

It may seem a little confusing at first, but you’ll get the hang of it as you keep writing and reading in English. After that, it’s just a matter of routine!

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This post was contributed by Courtney Phillips, who writes on the subject of the top online college degree. She invites your feedback at CourtneyPhillips80 at gmail.com