Use of apostrophe and why editing is important to writing

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' instead of 'neighbour's'.

 Apostrophes serve several purposes, one of which is to show possession. They are also used in contractions. A contraction is a word in which a letter has been removed after two words are merged to form one word. Common contractions in every day usage include; doesn't (does not), shouldn't (should not), couldn't (could not), won't (will not) and we're (we are), just to mention a few.