Question

What is the correct punctuation in this sentence? Day’s, days’, or days?
i) I embrace the day’s reprieve.
ii) I embrace the days’ reprieve.
iii) I embrace the days reprieve.

Answer 1

Hint: The given question is from the topic of punctuation. It is the use of spacing, special symbols, and typographical devices which enhances the understanding of a text when it is being read to oneself or read aloud in public meetings. These punctuation change the tone of a sentence and let us know whether it is a question or an exclamation or just a fact.

Complete answer:
The punctuation mark that is being discussed in this question is the apostrophe (’). It is used to omit or remove certain letters which are not essential while writing (such letters are generally vowels). For e.g. I am sorry. Can be written as, I’m sorry. Here we have omitted the vowel ‘e’.

Looking at its usage in the question, we can see that no letter has been omitted. Therefore, let us see another use of the apostrophe. It is also used to make a possessive case of nouns by adding the apostrophe after the noun and an ‘s’ after the apostrophe. For e.g. This book belongs to my brother. Can be written as; This is my brother’s book. In the question, we are discussing the noun ‘day’.

The first sentence literally means that I embrace the reprieve of the day.
The second sentence literally means that I embrace the reprieve of multiple days. When the noun ends with an ‘s’ we do not add another ‘s’ after the apostrophe.
The third sentence does not use the apostrophe and hence the sentence does not make any sense.
Therefore, the correct punctuations for given examples are day’s and days’.

Note: Another similar punctuation mark is the inverted comma. It can either be single inverted commas or double inverted commas. They are also called quotation marks or speech marks. It consists of an opening quotation mark and a closing quotation mark, which together enclose a direct speech. It may also be used to highlight a specific word or phrase for emphasis or creating irony.