- [Voiceover] Hello
grammarians, hello Paige. - [Voiceover] Hi David. - [Voiceover] In the driver's seat. - [Voiceover] So, Paige,
today, it is my understanding that we are gonna talk
about the possessive. - [Voiceover] That's right. - [Voiceover] What even is
the possessive in English? What does that mean when we say that? What does it mean to possess something? - [Voiceover] Right, so that means to own something or to have something. - [Voiceover] Okay, so this
relates to the apostrophe, in that we use the
apostrophe in many cases, we use the apostrophe s in
many cases to show possession. Right, so if I were
talking about, there are a couple of ways to show that something belongs to someone or
something in English, like I could say, the carrot that belonged to that rabbit was delicious. - [Voiceover] Yeah, but
that's pretty complicated, and can make sentences much
longer than they need to be. - [Voiceover] So what's
a simpler way of saying the carrot that belonged to
the rabbit was delicious. - [Voiceover] You can say something like the rabbit's carrot was delicious. - [Voiceover] Oh, interesting,
so you're actually containing, there's like
a lot of information that's contained within the
rabbit's, that little thing. 'Cause you're expressing the relationship between the rabbit and the carrot, just with that little apostrophe s, that contains so much information in it. - [Voiceover] Yeah, the
whole idea of the rabbit owning the carrot comes
from that apostrophe s. - [Voiceover] That's super cool. - [Voiceover] Yeah,
it's a pretty big deal. - [Voiceover] So this
doesn't just apply to common nouns, like rabbits, this can also apply to proper nouns, like people, or countries, or businesses, or whatever. - [Voiceover] Totally.
- [Voiceover] Or movies. - [Voiceover] Yeah, anything, I think - [Voiceover] Okay, so
to pull a completely random figure from American history, let's say Alexander
Hamilton had a surfboard. - [Voiceover] Okay. - [Voiceover] So, we could say, using the apostrophe s construction,
we could refer to Alexander Hamilton's surfboard, right? - [Voiceover] Right, the surfboard that belongs to Alexander Hamilton. - [Voiceover] Alright, so that
seems pretty straightforward. If we wanna show possession,
we just add an apostrophe s. Is that true in all cases though? - [Voiceover] Well, okay, not always. - [Voiceover] Okay, so there's a wrinkle. - [Voiceover] Of course,
there's always a wrinkle. - [Voiceover] Introduce
for us this wrinkle, Paige. - [Voiceover] So, there's an exception to this rule of using apostrophe s for possession when
you're using a pronoun. - [Voiceover] Ah!
- [Voiceover] Right. - [Voiceover] So, rabbit
and Alexander Hamilton are both nouns, but there are pronouns like it, or he, or she, where you don't use an apostrophe to show possessive. - [Voiceover] So if I wanted to say, that surfboard is his, there's no apostrophe in there, right? - [Voiceover] Right. - [Voiceover] Or, we
could just as easily say his surfboard, and I think
that's the same as saying that surfboard is Alexander Hamilton's. And you can see that there's
this real, it makes sense to want to put a possessive
apostrophe s in there, right, but that's not what you do. - [Voiceover] Right. - [Voiceover] This is this one kind of obnoxious exception to the rule. So, for possessive pronouns, they don't, they just, they never take apostrophes. - [Voiceover] That's right. - [Voiceover] Okay, so
the possessive in English usually formed with apostrophe s, The rabbit's carrot was delicious, Alexander Hamilton's surfboard, but when we're talking
about possessive pronouns like his, or hers, or ours, or theirs, or my, or its, no apostrophes are needed. Possessive pronouns
never take apostrophes. - [Voiceover] You got it. - [Voiceover] Sweet, thanks Paige. - [Voiceover] Thank you. - [Voiceover] You can
learn anything, David out. - [Voiceover] Paige out.