Question

Choose the option that best corrects the sentence:
The children’s toys were lying all over the rooms floor.
a) NO CHANGE
b) The children’s toy’s were lying all over the room’s floor.
c) The children’s toys were lying all over the room’s floor.
d) The children’s toys were lying all over the rooms floor.

Answer 1

Hint: An apostrophe indicates possession and is used with nouns in two ways. In the given sentence the word rooms mean more than one room. Check if that makes sense as per the context.

Complete answer:
As mentioned above, an apostrophe indicates possession and it is used in two ways, one before an ‘s’ in order to highlight that specific noun, and second, the other way is after ‘s’ in order to emphasize a plural noun which end with ‘s’. In the given sentence apostrophe has been used correctly with children (children’s). This shows that the toys belong to the children. Another word that would require the use of an apostrophe is rooms (room’s) as the floor that is being talked about is in the room. Therefore, the correct sentence would be, “The children’s toys were lying all over the room’s floor.” This is option ‘c’. Hence, the correct answer is option c.
As the sentence required correction, therefore, option a ‘No change’ is invalid.
Option b “The children’s toy’s were lying all over the room’s floor.” Is incorrect as the sentence contains ‘toy’s’ instead of toys. ‘Toys’ is the correct one as it refers to multiple toys, while ‘toy’s’ would means something belongs to a toy which is incorrect.
Option d “The childrens toys were lying all over the rooms floor.” is incorrect as apostrophe has been removed from children and the apostrophe from rooms is also missing. Therefore, option ‘d’ is incorrect too.

Note:
As mentioned above, an apostrophe indicates possession; therefore, it is essential to use it correctly at the correct places. There is no such word as ‘childrens’ as mentioned in option d. Children are itself a plural noun.