| Wiki: | The apostrophe (', often rendered as ') is a punctuation mark, and sometimes a diacritic mark, in languages that use the Latin alphabet or certain other alphabets. In English, it serves two main purposes-the omission of one or more letters--also known as a contraction--(as in doesn't for does not) and the marking of possessives (as in the cat's whiskers), though usage in forming certain plurals is sometimes accepted. According to the Oxford English Dictionary (OED), the word comes ultimately from Greek ? ?????????? [???????? ????????] (h? apóstrophos, "" 'turning away', or elision""), through Latin and French. |