Test Your English Grammar Skills

Sometimes it seems that the English language is designed just to trip us up - and certain punctuation and grammar problems do seem to crop up more often than others. The pesky apostrophe is a good example! Here is an opportunity to test your skills.

1. Let's have dinner at the (Smiths) (Smith's) (Smiths').

2. (It's) (Its) always been an amusing sight to see my cat chase (it's) (its) tail.

3. Jack gave two (weeks) (weeks') notice before moving to Alaska with his wife and some relatives of (her) (her's) (hers).

Answers: ----------- 1. Smiths' - Refers to the residence belonging to (therefore possessive, requiring use of apostrophe) the Smiths (plural, referring to all family members).

2. It's - contraction for "it has"; its - possessive form of "it" - very often used incorrectly because it does, in fact, indicate possession. This is the one case where the possessive apostrophe is not used, to avoid confusion with the contraction for "it is" or "it has."

3. Weeks' - expressions referring to time take the possessive form; hers - for personal possessive pronouns, no apostrophe is needed (my, mine, his, hers, theirs, etc.).