Apostrophes, Dashes, and Hyphens

Apostrophe for Odds and Ends Awkward Plurals I have three CPA’s in my family who made fortune selling tax preparation CD-ROM’s Though I made four A’s and four B’s, I’m more proud of the two 5’s and three 4’s on my AP Tests. (Spell out numbers=no apostrophes.) My parents were born in the 1940’s (or 1940s) 5 o’clock

Missing Letters Contractions: Can’t, Won’t, etc. Can be used for dialect. Mark Twain wrote the novel Puddin’ Head Wilson. I’m goin’ to ask you one more time.

Possessives Singular Possessives  Bill’s book. A children’s story. Mr. Jenkins’ book

Dashes Used for dramatic separation. It was my greatest joy—watching her eyes sparkle on her birthday. You need to know—and I mean this in the nicest way possible—that your breath stinks.

Hyphens Compound Adjectives: self-destructive behavior. Well-cooked steak. Not…The steak is well cooked. Relation Names: great-aunt Usually self- and quasi- will have hyphens Fractions: a two-thirds majority. Not…I own two thirds of the property in Charlotte. Use with ex-, and when adding to a proper noun (pro-American).

Avoid Awkwardness For recreation, my father does re-creations of Civil War Battles. After we recovered the storm, we had to re-cover the chairs. Back-to-back vowels: anti-imperialism