Everson, Michael (2020-10-01). "L2/20-269: Proposal to add two SIGMOID S characters for mediaeval palaeography" (PDF). It’s important not to add an apostrophe to these words, especially when they can be easily confused with contractions: This apostrophe form of the possessive remained extremely common throughout the 17th century and was used by the likes of Thomas Jefferson and Jane Austen. The version without the apostrophe only became dominant in the 18th century—probably because it's was taking on a new role, replacing the contraction 'tis. In most Western orthographies, the ſ gradually fell out of use during the second half of the 18th century, although it remained in occasional use into the 19th century.

It existed alongside minuscule "round" or "short" s, which was at the time only used at the end of words. S with diacritics: Ś ś Ṡ ṡ ẛ Ṩ ṩ Ṥ ṥ Ṣ ṣ S̩ s̩ Ꞩ ꞩ Ꟊꟊ [11] Ŝ ŝ Ṧ ṧ Š š Ş ş Ș ș S̈ s̈ ᶊ Ȿ ȿ ᵴ [12] ᶳ [13] Constable, Peter (2004-04-19). "L2/04-132 Proposal to add additional phonetic characters to the UCS" (PDF). Archived (PDF) from the original on 2017-10-11 . Retrieved 2018-03-24. Woodard, Roger D. (2006). "Alphabet". In Wilson, Nigel Guy. Encyclopedia of ancient Greece. London: Routldedge. p. 38.Long s (ſ), a form of the lower-case letter s formerly used where "s" occurred in the middle or at the beginning of a word The minuscule form ſ, called the long s, developed in the early medieval period, within the Visigothic and Carolingian hands, with predecessors in the half-uncial and cursive scripts of Late Antiquity. It remained standard in western writing throughout the medieval period and was adopted in early printing with movable types. Everson, Michael; Lilley, Chris (2019-05-26). "L2/19-179: Proposal for the addition of four Latin characters for Gaulish" (PDF). Ancient Greek did not have a /ʃ/ phoneme, so the derived Greek letter sigma ( Σ) came to represent the voiceless alveolar sibilant /s/.

The letter ⟨s⟩ is the seventh most common letter in English and the third-most common consonant after ⟨t⟩ and ⟨n⟩. [7] It is the most common letter for the first letter of a word in the English language. [8] [9] Northwest Semitic šîn represented a voiceless postalveolar fricative /ʃ/ (as in ' ship'). It originated most likely as a pictogram of a tooth ( שנא) and represented the phoneme /ʃ/ via the acrophonic principle. [2] S, a non-SI unit used to designate molecule size named after the Svedberg sedimentation coefficient It would be simpler, of course, if there were only one form in use, and there's an argument to be made for using it's in all cases; 's serves both purposes just fine for nouns. In the cat's bowl it signals possession, and in the cat's sleeping it represents the contracted verb is. Language authorities differ in their recommendations, but since styles guides like MLA, APA, and Chicago recommend adding the “s,” we advise going for this approach (e.g., “Darius’s reign”).

usage note For 's

An apostrophe followed by an “s” is the most common way to indicate possession (ownership) in English. This applies to most singular nouns and also to plural nouns that don’t end in “s” (e.g., “women” becomes “women’s”).

archaic Greek Sigma could be written with different numbers of angles and strokes. Besides the classical form with four strokes ( ), a three-stroke form resembling an angular Latin S ( ) was commonly found, and was particularly characteristic of some mainland Greek varieties including Attic and several "red" alphabets. S" Is for Silence, the nineteenth novel in Sue Grafton's "Alphabet mystery" series, published in 2005 Everson, Michael (2019-04-25). "L2/19-180R: Proposal to add two characters for Middle Scots to the UCS" (PDF). In this case, the result of just adding an “s” without any punctuation can often be mistaken for another word (e.g., “is”) or simply look wrong (e.g., “ss”). So it’s standard to add an apostrophe in this context. Example: Apostrophe “s” to pluralize lowercase lettersThere are five s’s and two e’s in “assesses.” Plural nouns that end in “s” (most plural nouns) form the possessive with an apostrophe after the “s,” without adding a second “s.”In theory, the rule that distinguishes the two is simple: it's means it is or it has. The apostrophe signals that something has been removed: Unlike possessive nouns, possessive pronouns do not contain apostrophes. The possessive pronouns are mine, ours, yours, his, hers, its, theirs, and whose.

In almost all cases, you should not add an apostrophe before the “s” when you’re simply pluralizing a noun. For example, the plural of “mango” is “mangos,” not “mango’s.” While the letter shape Σ continues Phoenician šîn, its name sigma is taken from the letter samekh, while the shape and position of samekh but name of šîn is continued in the xi. [ citation needed] There is one context in which style guides do advise adding an apostrophe for a plural. This is when you’re pluralizing an individual letter.In English and several other languages, primarily Western Romance ones like Spanish and French, final ⟨s⟩ is the usual mark of plural nouns. It is the regular ending of English third person present tense verbs.