How many spaces follow an apostrophe that shows omission

Introduction Terminal Punctuation. Periods Question Marks Exclamation Points. Punctuation Within Sentences. Spacing and Breaks. Paragraph Breaks White Spaces and Spacing. Richard Nordquist. English and Rhetoric Professor. Richard Nordquist is professor emeritus of rhetoric and English at Georgia Southern University and the author of several university-level grammar and composition textbooks.

Featured Video. Cite this Article Format. Nordquist, Richard. A Guide to Using Apostrophes Correctly. How to Use 'Y'all' Correctly. Tricky Cases of Subject-Verb Agreement. Understanding and Using French Adjectives Adjectifs. Formation and Usage of Possessive Nouns. Definition and Examples of the Greengrocer's Apostrophe. Your Privacy Rights. To change or withdraw your consent choices for ThoughtCo. At any time, you can update your settings through the "EU Privacy" link at the bottom of any page.

These choices will be signaled globally to our partners and will not affect browsing data. We and our partners process data to: Actively scan device characteristics for identification. I Accept Show Purposes. Add a space before and after the slash. Ellipses are made up of three periods with spaces between them. Use ellipses when material has been omitted from a direct word-for-word quotation, whether the omission is a word, phrase, or several sentences.

The veterinarian spoke softly, "The poor horse is. Use a 4-period closed ellipsis at the end of a partial quote that is nonetheless a complete grammatical sentence thus including a period at the end of a 3-period ellipsis. I have a weathered copy of that photograph in my own personal collection. Note: When used within a sentence, place a space before the first period and after the last period of ellipses. If a mark of punctuation occurs right before the ellipses in the sentence, include the punctuation and follow it with one space before the first period of the ellipses.

Do not use ellipses to begin a quotation. Brackets [] are used to insert comments or information into direct quotations, to identify errors in text, and to enclose parenthetical information within a parenthetical passage.

Although similar to parentheses, brackets and parentheses are used for specifically different purposes. Use brackets to insert comments or clarifying information within a direct quotation. The brackets indicate the parenthetical information is not included in the original text of the quotation itself. Use brackets to highlight errors in the original text of quoted material by immediately following the error with the Latin word sic "thus" enclosed in brackets.

This addition acknowledges the original error and lets it stand as written. The language they spoke was English, Modern English, readily comprehensible by twentifirst century English speakers, although it was a different dialect. In the same way that you do, they sometimes shortened words for speaking purposes. These are called contractions, like when you say "can't" instead of "can not", or "I'll" instead of "I will".

The "a" with and sometimes without an apostrophe could be a short form for many words, particularly "he" apostrophe before , "at" apostrophe after and "have" apostrophe both before and after. However, the frequent use of this particular contraction was peculiar to Shakespeare: neither Marlowe, Lyly, Spenser, Nashe or Webster ever use it, and it does not appear in the King James Bible either.

Jonson uses it once in Every Man in His Humour as a contraction for "he". The use of this contraction would appear to be part of Shakespeare's Warwickshire dialect, and not a general part of Elizabethan English at all. Apostrophe has four syllables. The syllables are a-pos-tro-phe. No apostrophe and then an 's' indicates a plural. Be careful about possessive pronouns, though!

They're a big exception to the standard English rule that an apostrophe indicates possession. Hers, yours, and especially itscause a lot of confusion because they're among the few possessives that never use an apostrophe.

Many people mistakenly use it's as a possessive because of the apostrophe, but it's! For example: Its shelter is found under branches and leaves. For example: It's a beautiful day. It is very common for people to use these words incorrectly, because many nouns use the apostrophe to indicate the possessive form.

But here it is a contraction. One way to remember this is thatthe apostrophe in "it's" is taking the place of the missing I of "it is". The contraction of will not is won't. This is one of the many peculiarities of the English language. With apostrophe note spelling is totally incorrect. Many people these days seem to think that apostrophes are required everywhere, but in reality they denote either possessives the Smiths' dog, the blacksmith's dog or a contraction such as "where's the dog" where is the dog.

A common mistake even amongst journalists and professional writers is to confuse "its" and "it's". The former is the possessive, the latter a contraction of "it is" as in "every dogs has its day" and "it's a dog of a day". Log in.

Academic Writing. Apostrophes and Ellipses. Study now. See Answer. Best Answer. There aren't any spaces after the apostrophe in a contraction did you see what I did? Study guides. Academic Writing 20 cards.