ShmoopTube

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Here's your shmoop du jour, brought to you by E-Mail. Because you can't BCC anyone on

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a hand-written letter.

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How should this sentence be changed so that it is grammatically correct?

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He finished reading three friends's e-mails and responded to them immediately.

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Apostrophes are tough, because they have a few different uses. They're more versatile

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than Phillip Seymour Hoffman.

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Real quick, let's review some of the ways apostrophes can be used.

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Contractions. This one's been ingrained in us since we were kids.

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Won't, isn't and I'm are all lazier ways to say Will not, Is not, and I am.

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Next, we can use apostrophes to show possession. The purple unicorn's hat was stolen. The hat

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is the unicorn's, so we put an apostrophe S after "unicorn."

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If the clan of unicorns all lost their hats at the same time, there's another rule:

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If something is the possession of a group, then you put the apostrophe after the S that

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makes the noun plural. Okay, now let's go through our answer choices.

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We'll never have a plural noun and THEN an apostrophe S, so the original sentence can't

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be right. B doesn't tell us that there are multiple

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friends in the equation based on the apostrophe.

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If it was one friend's email, this would work, but we need the apostrophe after the S if

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we are talking about a bunch of friends. Nothing about C is even close to right "friendses'"

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is not a word. No matter how much fun it is to say.

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We're left with D, which puts the apostrophe after the S, showing that the friends is plural.

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We hope you remember this when it comes time to take your tests-es.

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