Day 129: Use the S-apostrophe to show possession for a plural noun that ends in S.

Using the apostrophe-S to show possession is pretty simple. Consider this sentence.

“Bob’s dog is barking.”

We added the apostrophe-S to show that the dog is owned by Bob.

However, if you need to show possession by a plural noun, then you may only need the S-apostrophe. This is only true if the noun already has an S to make it plural. Consider this sentence.

“The boys’ car is broken.”

Here, the car belongs to more than one boy. It belongs to the boys, and boys is a plural noun ending in S. Thus, we only need to add the apostrophe after the S. Here’s another example:

“When the dogs’ house got wet, the dogs moved inside.”

Because we’re writing about more than one dog owning the house, we only need the apostrophe. (Writing “dog’s” would indicate that the house belongs to only one dog.)