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Grammar Bricks
Nouns and -s in English
In English, we add an extra -s to nouns in various situations, and this can be somewhat confusing for non-native speakers.
Case 1: Plural
Rule: Add -s to a singular noun to form a plural
For most words in English, an extra -s at the end signals that it is more than one (”plural”). Words which do not take an -s to form a plural are irregular, and there might be various reasons for it being so.
Nouns consisting of more than one word only gets an apostrophe after the most important word for the meaning.
Commander-in-chief → Commanders-in-chief
Mother-in-law → Mothers-in-law
Snow angel → Snow angels
Exception: Loanwords
Words taken from other languages, usually Greek or Latin, often retain there original plurals as well. Sometimes modern plurals are also ok, but it might sound a bit more learned to use the Greek/Latin originals.
Exception: Very old English words
Words which have been in the English language since time immemorial often retain a very old plural form not otherwise used anymore. Many of the most common nouns in English are also very old, so the more common a noun is, the more likely it is to be irregular.
Exception: Words which don’t change at all
Some words do not change when in plural form, even though they are perfectly countable.
Exception: Words which cannot be counted
Some nouns in English simply can’t be counted and therefore do not have plural forms, instead you have to rely on various other words as a workaround.
Example
On the farm, a man puts his foot in a cactus, and his scream scares a goose and a sheep, and on the sole of his foot you can clearly see the evidence: a cactus needle impaling the flesh.
On two farms, two men put their feet in two cacti, and their screams scare two geese and two sheep, and on the soles of their feet you can clearly see the evidence: cactus needles impaling the flesh.
Exercise
On the picture to the left, a woman bus driver is telling the woman to keep her creepy child from explaining his weird hypothesis about an unexplained phenomenon related to a bacterium.
Now, imagine the situation is doubled. What would the correct sentence be? Clıck start below to try it out for yourself!
Case 2: Ownership
Rule: Add -’s to a singular noun to show ownership
By adding an apostrophe [app-OS-tro-fee] and an “s” to a noun tells you that the coming noun or noun phrase is “owned” by the first noun.
The family’s dog is a dachshund. The dog’s fur is black. The color’s lustre is amazing.
Exception: Nouns already ending in “s”
Words already ending in “s”, such as many plurals and some proper names, just get an apostrophe.
The cat’s claw is sharp.
The cats’ claws are sharp.
Jesus’ disciples were killed.
Exception: The X of the Y-construction
Using the genitive -’s will often sound a bit weird for native speakers if the noun is not alive. Using the grammatical construction “the X of the Y” avoids this problem.
✅ The cat’s name was Mark.
✅ Mark’s tail was black.
❌ The tail’s color was black.
✅ The color of the tail was black.
Exception: Pronouns
Pronouns never use “-’s”, instead there are specific pronouns for ownership.
Me - mine
You - your
It - its (NO apostrophe here)
We - our
They - their
Exception: Compound nouns and expressions
Compound nouns, i.e. nouns consisting of more than one word only gets an apostrophe after the final noun.
Commander-in-chief → the Commander-in-chief’s bag
Mother-in-law → the mother-in-law’s feet
Expressions such as “a life’s worth of memories” will get ‘s even if they are not people.
Example
The sister-in-law to uncle Vernon turned into a ballon, and nothing could be heard over the barks of the dogs of the sister-in-law as the she slowly exited the house through a hole in the ceiling.
Let’s try to fix that sentence!
Uncle Vernon’s sister-in-law turned into a ballon, nothing could be heard over the sister-in-law’s dogs’ barks as she slowly exited the house through the ceiling’s hole.
As uncle Vernon is a person, it feels natural to add an apostrophe+s instead of using the “X of Y”-construction.
The sister-in-law is certainly a person, and the dogs are alive, but “the sister-in-law’s dogs’ barks” is a bit tricky to say (although grammatically ok). Here, it would be better to use a combination of her name and the “X of Y”-construction instead, as in: “The barks of Marge’s dogs”.
Exercise
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