Page 154 - New Grammar with a Smile 8

• There was only one man who could take Hitler on: Churchill.
• The bridge couldn’t be seen: it had been washed away by the flash flood.
• I know Renuka very well: we were together in the hostel for four years.

2. to introduce direct speech, particularly when the reporting verb and the direct
speech are separated by an adverb or the object of the reporting verb. For example,

• Confucius said to his followers: ‘He who wishes to secure the good of others has
already secured his own.’
• Mahatma Gandhi said often: ‘Violence is the weapon of the weak; non-violence,
that of the strong.’

3. to introduce a list of related items. For example,
• The eight parts of speech are: the noun, the pronoun, the verb, the adverb, the
adjective, the preposition, the conjunction and the interjection.
• Asha’s virtues are as follows: honesty, loyalty, sincerity and simplicity.

Miscellaneous Punctuation Marks

The Apostrophe

The apostrophe is mainly used to form the possessive of nouns and to form certain
contractions.

In Possessives
The apostrophe is

1. used to show the possession of nouns, whether singular or plural (which do not
end with the letter s) add an apostrophe followed by an s. For example,
• The child’s bag = the bag of the child

• The woman’s clip = the clip of the woman
• The children’s school = the school of the children

2. added if the noun is plural and ends with an s. For example,
• The dogs’ bones = the bones of the dogs
• The birds’ nests = the nests of the birds

• The Chandras’ house = the house of the Chandras (the members of the family
named Chandra)
• The Joneses’ golf clubs = the golf clubs of the Joneses (the members of the
family named Jones)

3. generally added if the noun is a proper noun, is singular, and ends with an s; but it
is better to add an s after the apostrophe. For example,
• James’ father = the father of James
But it is better to write James’s father.

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