“The house was showing signs of wear along it’s foundation.”
1. What correction should be made to the sentence above?
- Change “house” to “houses.”
- Change “was showing” to “had shown.”
- Change “it’s” to “its.”
- Change “foundation” to “foundations.”
- No correction is needed.
“Susan’s group had always advocated for woman’s rights.”
2. What correction should be made to the sentence above?
- Change “Susan’s” to “Susans’.”
- Change “woman’s” to “women’s.”
- Change “woman’s” to “womens’.”
- Change “always” to “alway’s.”
- No correction is needed.
“We are having a sale today featuring three pair of pants for $14.95.”
3. What correction should be made to the sentence above?
- Change “pair” to “pairs.”
- Change “sale” to “sales.”
- Make “are having” “have.”
- Change “pair” to “pair’s.”
- No correction is needed.
“Hernán Cortés’s conquistadores brought an end to the Aztec Empire in Mexico.”
4. What correction should be made to the sentence above?
- Change “Cortes’” to “Cortes.”
- It should be spelled “Corte’s.”
- It should say “conquistadore’s.”
- Change “Cortes’s” to “Cortes’.”
- No correction is needed.
“I found two boy’s jackets that were left on the school bus.”
5. What correction should be made to the sentence above?
- “Jackets” should be “jacket’s.”
- “Boy’s should be “boys.”
- Change “boy’s” to “boys’s.”
- Change “boy’s” to “boys’.”
- No correction is needed.
“We went to visit the Gutierrezes yesterday.”
6. What correction should be made to the sentence above?
- It should be “Gutierrez.”
- It should be “Gutierrezs.”
- It should be “Gutierrezes’.”
- It should be “Gutierrez’s.”
- No correction is needed.
“Were you at the Jones’s big party last month?”
7. What correction should be made to the sentence above?
- The name should be spelled “Jones.”
- Change “Jones’s” to “Jone’s.”
- Change “Jones’s” to “Joneses’.”
- The name should be spelled “Jones’.”
- No correction is needed.
“Kathleen has three sister-in-laws.”
8. What correction should be made to the sentence above?
- Change it to “sister-in-law’s.”
- Change it to “sisters-in-law.”
- It should say “sisters-in-laws.”
- It should be “sisters-in-law’s.”
- No correction is needed.
“These are both my brother-in-laws’ cars.”
9. What correction should be made to the sentence above?
- Change “brother-in-laws’” to “brothers-in-law’s.”
- Change “brother-in-laws’” to “brothers’-in-law.”
- Change “brother-in-laws’” to “brothers-in-laws’.”
- Change “brother-in-laws’” to “brother-in-law’s.”
- No correction is needed.
“This jacket is her’s, not your’s.”
10. What correction should be made to the sentence above?
- Change it to “her’s, not yours.”
- Change it to “hers, not your’s.”
- Change it to “hers, not yours’.”
- Change it to “hers, not yours.”
- No correction is needed.
Answers – Plurals and Possessives
1. C: The correct spelling of the possessive form of the pronoun “it” has no apostrophe. “It’s” is only spelled correctly as a contraction of “it is.” “House” should not be made plural (A) because the verb “was” is singular, indicating that the subject is also singular. The progressive participle of “to show” is correct as is and would not be changed to past perfect (B) unless indicated by the surrounding context (e.g. “…had shown signs of wear…before it was renovated”), which is not available here. “Foundation” should not be pluralized (D) because a house only has one foundation.
2. B: The correct usage is the plural possessive noun, spelled “women’s.” “Susans’” (A) would mean “belonging to more than one Susan,” e.g. “He always got the two Susans’ last names confused.” “Womens’” (C) is incorrect because “women” is already plural without adding an s, so the apostrophe goes before the s to indicate possession, not after it. The adverb “always” (D) is never spelled with an apostrophe.
3. A: A common error is to use the word “pair” as a plural as well as a singular noun. A pair consists of two individual components, matched (“a pair of shoes”), unmatched but together (“a pair of friends”), or attached (“a pair of pants”). However, “pair” is a singular noun. With more than one pair, the correct usage is “three pairs.” “Sale” should not be pluralized (B) because the indefinite article “a” preceding it indicates it is singular. It is unnecessary to change the progressive participle “are having” to the present tense “have” (C): both are correct and either may be used. The plural form “pairs” does not have an apostrophe, which would make it a possessive singular noun, as in “This pair’s fabric is heavier,” which is not the way it is used in the sentence above.
4. E: No correction is needed. In forming possessives of names ending in –s, the –s’s ending is preferred. However, omitting the s after the apostrophe, e.g. “Cortes’,” is also acceptable. But since “Cortes’s” is preferred, changing it to “Cortes’” (D) is not necessary. Without the apostrophe (A), it would not be possessive, so this is incorrect. Since the name Cortes ends in an s, it is incorrect to insert the apostrophe as in “Corte’s” (B). This would mean the name without the possessive ending is “Corte,” which it is not. “Conquistadores” is plural but not possessive and should not have an apostrophe (C).
5. D: The noun is a possessive plural and is spelled “boys’.” While adding an apostrophe and an s is preferred with proper names ending in s, the same rule does not apply to words ending with the plural s, where only the apostrophe is added without an additional s (C). “Jackets” is a plural noun but not possessive, so it does not have an apostrophe (A). “Boys” with no apostrophe (B) is plural but not possessive.
6. E: No correction is necessary. The name is Gutierrez and the sentence shows that it is plural here because we do not typically add “the” to a proper name to mean one person. “The” + a surname means a family or a couple. Thus the singular form (A) is incorrect for this sentence. When pluralizing names ending in s or z, the ending “-es” is used the same as with non-name words ending in these letters, e.g. “classes;” so (B) is misspelled without the e. In this sentence the name is plural but not possessive, so no apostrophe (C, D) should be used.
7. C: The plural possessive of a name already ending in –s, like Jones, is formed by first pluralizing the proper noun (Joneses, as in the expression “keeping up with the Joneses”), and then adding the apostrophe after it (Joneses’). It is possible to refer correctly to the party using “Jones” without a possessive (A), e.g. “the Jones party;” however, this cannot be done with the adjective “big” in between “Jones” and “party,” as its interruption makes the possession unclear. “The Jones big party” is incorrect. With the order reversed, e.g. “the big Jones party,” the construction would be correct, but this is not the syntax of the sentence given. Since the name is Jones, “Jone’s” (B) is incorrect: an apostrophe is never inserted before the final -s in a name. Adding only an apostrophe without s as in “Jones’” (D) indicates possession but not plurality.
8. B: When pluralizing a compound noun like “sister-in-law,” the -s is added to the end of the first word (sister) but not to the last word (law) instead, as in the example; and not to both the first and last words (C). There should be no apostrophe (A and D) because it is plural but not possessive.
9. A: When making a plural compound noun possessive, the plural s first should be added to the first word (brothers), and then the apostrophe-s showing possession is added to the end (law’s). The possessive apostrophe is not added after the plural s of the first word (B). Choice C has the s after both the first and last words, but the possessive apostrophe is incorrectly placed after the s instead of before it. (The second s in “-law’s” indicates possession, not plurality, which is already indicated by “brothers”). Choice D makes the compound noun a singular possessive rather than a plural possessive, when “These are both” clearly shows it is plural.
10. D: Possessive pronouns like “his,” “hers,” “yours,” “ours,” and “theirs” already indicate possession, so no apostrophe should be added as it is in A, B, and C. Note: “his” can be subjective, e.g. “His jacket is over there;” or objective, e.g. “That jacket is his.” However, “hers,” “yours,” “ours,” and “theirs” are only used correctly in the objective case, e.g. “That jacket is hers/yours/ours/theirs” when the possessive pronoun is the object. You would not say or write, “Hers/yours/ours/theirs jacket is over there;” in the subjective case, when the
possessive pronoun modifies the subject, you leave off the s: “Her/your/our/their jacket is over there.”