How To Make The Word People Possessive - Simplify, Live, Love

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How to Make the Word PEOPLE Possessive

By Michelle Marine

on Mar 05, 2014, Updated Jan 06, 2025

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Are you wondering how to make the word people possessive? It’s not that hard, but it does deserve a quick explanation.

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” Touched peoples’ lives.”

At first I thought, “How nice. They used an apostrophe.” The college students in my Comp I classes have a terrible time with apostrophes. They use them to make words plural (rarely a good idea) and then forget them when they need to make words possessive. Is it that hard to tell when a word should be possessive or when it’s plural? Maybe someone can tell me so I can better help my Comp I students.

Then I looked again. PEOPLES’. Oh. No. Really?! ?Adding the apostrophe AFTER the -s on the word PEOPLE is WRONG. If you’re confused by how to make the word PEOPLE possessive, read on.

How to Make the Word PEOPLE Possessive

To make a singular noun possessive, the rule is to add apostrophe s: The dog’s bone was missing.

To make a plural noun possessive (if it ends in -s), the rule is to add an apostrophe (after the -s). The cats’ paws were covered in dirt.

So, what’s up with people? PEOPLE is a plural noun, but it does not end in -s, because it is one of those irregular nouns (like geese, children, women etc). We don’t make it plural by adding an s because it is already plural. To make it possessive, revert back to the rule for singular nouns: add apostrophe -s.

The stone should say: “Touched people’s lives.”

Here’s a better way to look at this issue:

1. If the word you wish to make possessive ends in an “s,” regardless of it is plural or not, add ONLY an apostrophe (after the -s).

2. If the word does NOT end in -s, add apostrophe ‘s.

Make sense?

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If you’re looking for helpful grammar resources, here are my top picks:

Grammarly – Instantly fix over 250 types of errors with this free web-based grammar checker!

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Eats, Shoots, and Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation 

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