Understanding Unapostrophized Words: When to Use (and Not Use) Apostrophes

In English, an apostrophe is used to indicate possession or a missing letter in a word. For example, "the cat's toy" uses an apostrophe to show that the toy belongs to the cat. However, when a word ends in -s and indicates possession, no apostrophe is used. This is called an unapostrophized word.

For example: "the dog's tail" does not use an apostrophe because the word "dog" already ends in -s, indicating possession. In contrast, "the cat's tail" does use an apostrophe because the word "cat" does not end in -s.

So, unapostrophized refers to words that do not use an apostrophe when they should, typically because the word already ends in -s and indicates possession.

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