Apostrophes are the curly floating commas in sentences that usually indicate possession or a contraction. There are a few set phrases and holidays, however, that also use apostrophes. In fact, ...

At the point at which I gave an example of a parenthetic expression in last week's column, two possessive nouns were used without apostrophes. These were, 'Johns ', instead of 'John's' and 'neighbours ...

In French, to show that someone possesses something, you use their word for “of,” which is “de”: La plume de ma tante. Spanish works the same way: La venganza de Moctezuma. Italian, too: Buca di Beppo ...