Mike Nolan, the San Francisco 49ers head coach, recently told USA TODAY about his June trip to Afghanistan.

“It reinforced that you have a job to do and your focus ought to be on the things you can control in order to get that job done,” Nolan said. “There’s not people over there feeling sorry for themselves.”

The apostrophe in a contraction signals missing letters. Couldn’t (could not). Doesn’t (does not). You remember. We tend to use contractions loosely. It’s important to make sure they’re accurate, that they work with the rest of the sentence when broken down.

Nolan’s contraction “there’s” abbreviates “there is,” a singular verb that does not match his subject, people. “There are not people over there feeling sorry for themselves.” Or, better yet, “The deployed American soldiers do not feel sorry for themselves.”