Where does the apostrophe go?

Ruth’s co-worker, Carol Kaptain, has been reading through the revision of Volume 5.  Carol is an NTM translation consultant, so she reviews the material specifically with transfer in mind.  

She recently noticed the apostrophe in the title for Ephesians, Lesson 3. 

The title stated: "Paul wrote about the believer’s past, present and future." 

Carol noticed that we used the singular form of the possessive in the title (believer’s) and several places in the lesson, but that we also used the plural form (believers’) several times in the lesson. 

Carol made this comment note: "I’d suggest being consistent – this is going to be more than placement of an apostrophe when transferred into other languages."

Most tribal languages have:

• a singular possessive (mine)
• an inclusive plural possessive (ours and yours)
• an exclusive plural possessive (ours, but not yours)

In this specific example, it really doesn’t matter a lot in English where the apostrophe goes.  We would understand it, whether we used singular or possessive.  (That’s why neither Mr. McIlwain nor I noticed it.)

But it’s critical to be precise about possession in other languages.  

Pray for Carol as she reviews the lessons with transfer in view. 

Pray also that we will be precise as we revise even the simple things such as where the apostrophe goes.