How to Write “Dos and Don’ts” the Right Way (with no added or misplaced apostrophe)

Today’s punctuation power tip is about the apostrophe situation in the phrase “dos and don’ts.” Many people get this one wrong, so let’s set the record straight.

Apostrophes, if you remember from my post about Christmas cards, are for making nouns possessive or for creating contractions. If Stephanie owns a grilled cheese sandwich, it’s Stephanie’s sandwich, with the apostrophe between her name and the ‘s.’ She possesses it and the apostrophe shows that.

If Stephanie doesn’t like to share, she might say, “Don’t eat my sandwich!” which contracts the words “do” and “not” into “don’t.” The apostrophe is used to contract the two words. Does all this sound familiar?

But if a noun doesn’t possess something, there is no apostrophe. When Stephanie finds three uneaten grilled cheese sandwiches on the counter, for example, there is no possession in the word “sandwiches.” It’s just a plural noun; thus, no apostrophe.

When you write the phrase “dos and don’ts,” the word “dos” and the word “don’ts” are both plural nouns—things you should do and things you should not do. But neither are possessive nouns. They’re just plural and, thus, they don’t need apostrophes either.

“Don’ts” is a contraction, so there is an apostrophe to combine the two words; the apostrophe is there to simply replace the second ‘o.’ But the word “don’ts,” even as a contraction remains a plural noun that doesn’t possess anything. The apostrophe is simply for the contraction, not for any possession.

Thus, writing the phrase in any of the following ways is WRONG:

• Do’s and Don’ts
• Do’s and Don’t’s
• Dos’ and Dont’s
• Dos’ and Donts’

So the next time you design a poster about making grilled cheese sandwiches (which Stephanie will be very excited about), write it the right way, like this, with no possessive apostrophes:

THE DOS AND DON’TS OF MAKING A GRILLED CHEESE SANDWICH