a mark ' used to indicate the omission of letters or figures, the possessive case (as in "John's book"), or the plural of letters or figures (as in "the 1960's") In the contraction "can't," the apostrophe replaces two of the letters in the word "cannot."
Here is another beautiful "new word" to describe the word apostrophe - a sky comma or in Afrikaans - 'n lugkomma!
Click HERE as well.
Thank you, Mojalefa Mabote for this contribution!