(n.) A figure of speech by which the orator or writer suddenly breaks off from the previous method of his discourse, and addresses, in the second person, some person or thing, absent or present; as, Milton's apostrophe to Light at the beginning of the third book of "Paradise Lost."
(n.) The contraction of a word by the omission of a letter or letters, which omission is marked by the character ['] placed where the letter or letters would have been; as, call'd for called.
(n.) The mark ['] used to denote that a word is contracted (as in ne'er for never, can't for can not), and as a sign of the possessive, singular and plural; as, a boy's hat, boys' hats. In the latter use it originally marked the omission of the letter e.
Example Sentences:
(1) The Ukrainian security service said it had forbidden Seagal entry to the country for five years, in a letter published by the news site Apostrophe.
(2) What if she misuses an apostrophe in her next post?
(3) The apostrophe has been missing since time immemorial.
(4) Instinctively, I glance at my room, looking for long-gone stickers in the window, the one for Mix ’96 (“Bucks Best Music” – the lack of apostrophe still irritates), and an aquapark we once went to in Spain.
(5) The word did not exist until the early 1700s, when the “a” in “acute” was replaced by an apostrophe – ’cute – and then dropped altogether.
(6) "The theme tune by Ronnie Hazlehurst features a piccolo spelling out the title in Morse code, excluding the apostrophes.
(7) He campaigned mightily to preserve the correct usage of the apostrophe, and the good councillors of Clogthorpe would be lampooned regularly as they ponderously set about desecrating their Victorian town in the cause of modernity.
(8) But it is far more important to highlight the moments that make this job truly special, like seeing the imagination a year 10 boy will put into thinking up a false name when caught misbehaving, or the deliberate misuse of an apostrophe by a student who, in his own way, is showing you he gets it.
(9) • This article was amended on 21 June 2012 to remove a misplaced apostrophe in the standfirst.
(10) But Tussauds (which has now dropped the apostrophe) never quite enjoyed the credibility of a museum and tended to be sneered at by historians.
(11) Unfortunately named cafe chain Apostrophe also fell victim to the curse of the apostrophe in a marketing slogan, "Great taste on it's way".
(12) Long before Lynne Truss's, Eats, Shoots & Leaves, Waterhouse founded The Association for the Abolition of the Aberrant Apostrophe: vile lapses of grammar in shops were among many regular targets.
(13) It could be something as small as a "Hope your OK" text, which will send me spiralling into apocalyptic visions of a life without apostrophes or question marks.
(14) As annoying as errant apostrophes and misplaced hyphens can be, they probably didn’t warrant their own website, nor were so offensive as to need incineration.
(15) Next comes the NHS, for confusing subject and object in a letter – "Your appointment has now been organised to attend Queen Mary's Hospital … " – and featuring a rogue apostrophe: "The RDC Suite's are clearly signposted".
Punctuation
Definition:
(n.) The act or art of punctuating or pointing a writing or discourse; the art or mode of dividing literary composition into sentences, and members of a sentence, by means of points, so as to elucidate the author's meaning.
Example Sentences:
(1) These results confirmed that 'punctuated' labeling was not an artefact due to a distortion of the cell's shape by having been dried on glass slides.
(2) Usually, there is leucoplakia with an erythema and an irregular keratosis or a punctuated one.
(3) Their unique point of view comes from diverse social and cultural experiences punctuated by a lifetime of inequities.
(4) Whatever social progress that marks her era came mainly from those Labour punctuations – abolition of capital punishment, Race Relations Act, abortion and homosexual law reform, equal pay and sex discrimination acts, civil partnerships, minimum wage, Sure Start, devolution, human rights, nursery education, a vast expansion of universities and more.
(5) The portion of my sample prawn orzo was a modest but polished plate of food, the dense bisque and silky grains of pasta elegantly punctuated by small bursts of tart, sweet semi-dried tomato.
(6) It is the first time in the short history of a country that has been repeatedly punctuated by periods of military rule that a former dictator has been held to account for his actions.
(7) Calcification, found in 2 of these cases, was characteristically discrete and nodular (calcifications found in chronic pancreatitis are typically diffuse, multiple, and punctuate).
(8) Her interventions will punctuate the conversation that follows.
(9) I know you love me and I love you,” said Jonathan, wearing his trademark fedora and carrying a gold-handled cane, in a speech punctuated by bass guitar and cymbals.
(10) A region upstream of the IPNS structural gene (pcbC) has been sequenced and the transcription initiation sites appear as major and minor pairs on either side of one of the pyrimidine-rich blocks that punctuate the promoter sequence.
(11) Then she married, had two more children, moved to Hawaii and lead a regular life working in real estate, punctuated by paparazzi camping out on her lawn whenever Polanski made a move.
(12) – but Russell happily slips in and out of voices and lines from the movie, his recollections punctuated by wistful sighs.
(13) After a period on Radio Luxembourg he was offered the freelance job of disc jockey on the radio programme Housewives' Choice, on which Jacobs had to play record requests and punctuate them with anodyne chat.
(14) As the story progresses, we follow our lunkhead hero Johnny Rico (Casper Van Dien) on his steps up the military ladder, and we find out, through deeply satirical propaganda adverts that punctuate the action, that this war might not be so just and that the humans we've been cheering are from a fascist society.
(15) In a year that will be punctuated by sober reflection and a series of commemorative occasions, it is tempting to assume a certain inevitability to events, especially when looking at them through the prism of hindsight.
(16) On Wembley Way the party atmosphere had been briefly punctuated by a skirmish between rival fans.
(17) We evaluate ten components, each of one is pointed between 0 and two, then overall incontinence punctuation (I.P.)
(18) When quiescent normal cells were PCNA-stained at 3 h after 100 microM CDDP treatment for 1 h, almost all nuclei of the cells showed a punctuated staining pattern.
(19) The two men, from different political camps, have a polite relationship that has sometimes been barbed and punctuated by stinging Conservative quips about French leftwing tax-and-spend policies .
(20) Yet Lemieux was unmistakably getting the worst of the exchanges and was finally dropped by a three-punch sequence punctuated by a left to the body late in the round.