Okay so I was prowling youtube for oldies and I found 'My Boyfriend's Back' by the Angels. Great song but... surely--My Boyfriend's Back refers to his 'back' as in spine--reverse side of his body--not his front?
Love the English language but it seems the more I delve into it's intricacies the more confused I get. Apostrophes are a particular pain in the ass.
So my question is--without changing the wording--how can I use an apos. to make it clear I mean me boyfriend has returned and not that I'm singing praises about the reverse side of his torso?
FYI I don't have a boyfriend, I'm strictly hetero, just saying.
:-)
You can't; they're identical. You'd have to use the word is. Or rely on the neighboring phrases to clarify the context. In this case, "My boyfriend's back … and you're gonna be in trouble" lets you know she means the contraction because otherwise it would be a non sequitur. Though that never stopped anyone when it comes to lyrics.
It's is the unusual one that trips up most people, because it's never possessive, always a contraction, and you skip the apostrophe for possessive. It's correct to talk about its usage (for example).
You could just use another word/phrase. Returned, back in town, is here, the list goes on.
It depends if that is the whole sentence.
Usually when you use an apostrophy in to write a sentence like "My boyfriend's back" we assume that the apostrophy "s" stands for the verb "is". Without the verb "Is" the phrase wouldn't be a sentence. To make it clear go with Gordon's suggestion of adding extra information. You could add in something simple as a prepositional phrase ("My boyfriend's back in town").
If you were trying to talk about the physical part you'd need to say more than "My boyfriend's back" because it doesn't contain a verb or any other information about the physical back for example "My boyfriend's back is hairy".
Thanks Gordon, Dwayne, Keiri--
Gotta' love it when English Grammar just pops up it's middle finger and says, "Hey--this is me--this is what I do--live with it, sucker!"
Great song, but the title will irk me to the grave... :-)
