Ouch! These contractions hurt!

Their? There? They're?

Rock 'n Roll? Fish n' Chips?

It's tone has been unapologetically radical?

Everyone say’s that history repeat’s it’s self?

Stoves & Spa's?

From signs: Republican's, Democrat's, Pagan's, Liar's, Liberal's, Racist's, Wedding's, Birthday's, and on and on and on.

These are just a few examples of how people in America—people who presumably speak English as their native tongue—write these days. It seems as if very few people have any idea what an apostrophe is and how to use it. I never cease to be amazed that even apparently professionals don't seem to have even a modicum of familiarity with the apostrophe.

There are two uses of the apostrophe in English: first, to denote possession, and second, to form a contraction. I'm not going to get into the first usage here, but let me just provide a simple example, just for the record: Becky's car is pink. Not too difficult to understand. I added an apostrophe and an "s" to the subject of the sentence (Becky) to denote that the car belongs to Becky.

Okay. Now let's get into contractions. I'm not going to write a long, drawn out essay on contractions. I love simplicity, and the fact of the matter is that contractions are super simple! Whenever you omit characters, replace whatever you've omitted with an apostrophe! That's it! Several examples should be all that's required to clarify.

• Rock 'n' Roll — I omitted the first "a" in "and" and replaced it with an apostrophe; I omitted the second "a" in "and" and replaced it with an apostrophe.
• Fish 'n' Chips — Same as Rock 'n' Roll.
• They're — I omitted the space and the "a" in "they are" and replaced them with an apostrophe.
• From above, "Its tone...." — This is not a contraction; it's a possessive pronoun; no apostrophe required.
• Republicans, Democrats, Pagans, Liars... — None of these is a contraction (or possessive). They're all simply plurals. Add "s" and that's it.
• Several examples should be all that's required to clarify. — Remove the space and the "i" from "that is" and replace them with an apostrophe.

You'll (you will with the space and the "wi" removed and replaced with an apostrophe) notice that sometimes a space is removed and other times it is left. Although you technically can do either, certain methods have become common over time. Use those.

Does he's mean "he is" or "he has"? Yes! Context will tell you.

He's headed over right now. (He is headed over right now.)

She's done that before. (She has done that before.)

So, it's as simple as that! Of course, the people who slaughter the English language won't (I can't explain that contraction!) be reading this blog, so all my effort may be in vain!