possessives

 Problems with possessives are discussed in some detail in the Appendix under apostrophe, but three especially common faults are worth mentioning here.

 1. Failure to put an apostrophe in the right place. This is particularly frequent with words like men’s, women’s, and children’s, which all too often appear as mens’, womens’, and childrens’.

 2. Failure to put an apostrophe in at all. This practice - spelling the words mens, womens, and childrens and so on - is particularly rife among retailers. It is painful enough to behold there, inexcusable elsewhere.

 3. Putting an apostrophe where none is needed. Possessive pronouns - his, hers, ours, theirs, and so on - do not take an apostrophe. But sometimes one is wrongly inserted, as here: "I don’t think much of your’s" (Independent headline).

 (See also "ours is not to reason why .. .")