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Hers/her's
Former Member
Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
Is 'hers' right?
This is what I want to put in my essay but 'hers' written like that doesnt look right but I know that 'her's' isnt right either
Anthony Ray playing Tony was given his lines in advance whereas Leila Goldini playing Leila was given hers at the very last minute
This is what I want to put in my essay but 'hers' written like that doesnt look right but I know that 'her's' isnt right either
Post edited by JustV on
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Leila Goldini playing Leila was given her lines at the very last minute whereas Anthony Ray playing Tony was given his in advance
you are = you're
they are = they're
However im crap at english so correct me if I am wrong.
It looks like it should be 'her's', because one use of apostrophes is to indicate possession - so it's an easy mistake to make and lots of people do. But apostrophes to indicate possession are only used with nouns (the boy's hat).
'Hers' is the third person singular possessive pronoun of 'her' - the sole job of this word is to indicate possession - in short, no apostrophe needed.
What a nerd I am!
It is used for contractions like this, but also for possession - eg this is Hellfire's hat.
However some words don't use the apostrophe for possession, most notably its. Hers is the same. There is probably a rule about why this is so, but it's ok just to learn these cases.
People find its/it's especially difficult, but it's really not so hard - if you're talking about something belonging to it, you don't need an apostrophe, you only need it if you are contracting it is.
(This seems an illogical rule given that we would say "this is the cat's milk", but then say "this is its milk" - but maybe it just is illogical. Or maybe there is a good reason for it that I just don't know.)
Ah, this is the rule! Thanks!
Me too!
The original constructions were "Paul his dog", "Mary hers cat" and "the rock its moss"
I think that translates as: You don't use apostrophes to denote possesion for words like 'theirs', 'hers', 'yours' etc.
I also loved this, being a grammar nerd:
I remember doing something similar at school but with handbags and princesses.
Just
In general, if you're really not sure, I reckon it's better to leave out apostrophes. Personally, seeing a word that should have one but doesn't is WAY less offensive to my grammatically pedantic eyes than seeing a word that shouldn't have one but does :yes: