- [Instructor] In order
for emperor penguin chicks to survive the harsh
weather in Antarctica, its parents share the responsibilities of incubating the eggs and traveling to the ocean to gather food. All right, so let's look
at the its right over here. Its parents. So its. Its is this right over here. Its is a singular possessive pronoun. Singular possessive pronoun, which is just a fancy
way of saying it's referring to one individual thing
possessing something. Now, here are we referring to one individual thing
possessing something? Are we talking about one thing's parents? Well, let's look over here. In order for emperor penguin chicks, emperor penguin chicks to survive. So we're talking about
many penguins' parents. So it doesn't make sense to have singular possessive pronoun. The singular possessive
pronoun would make sense if it said in order for
an emperor penguin chick to survive the harsh weather
in Antarctica, its parents. If they were just talking about one chick, but they're talking about many chicks, so we're going to need a plural. We're going to need a plural possessive pronoun, and the one
we would use is their. Their. So in order for emperor penguin chicks, so we're talking about many things, to survive the harsh
weather in Antarctica, their parents share. So this is going to be their. Their parents share the responsibilities of incubating the eggs and traveling to the ocean to gather food. So that's this choice right over here. So once again, we rule out this one because that would be if we're talking about one penguin chick's parents. We're talking about many
penguin chicks' parents. And so an it with an apostrophe s, you might be tempted to think
that this is possessive. Even if you were kind of confusing it with it's right over here, this one actually here is the contraction. So it apostrophe s is a contraction for it is. And the way that I remember
is its is like his or her. Its. You wouldn't write his like that. You would write his,
or you would write her. And its is just if you're not trying to talk about the gender of
whatever is possessing things. So her, his, its. In any of these situations, you
wouldn't have an apostrophe. It's with the apostrophe, that is it is. Now, we already talked about their as being a plural possessive pronoun and the right answer here. And then you have there,
which sounds exactly the same, but it is spelled T-H-E-R-E. And that one, you would
say, hey, I didn't go there. It's a different word. It sounds the same, but
it's spelled differently and it has a different meaning. And this is actually
an embarrassing mistake that I've made many times on emails when I'm typing real fast. I'll use this for this. I'll use this there for that their and that their for this there. So always double-check
your emails for that one. I know it's a mistake that I've done many times inadvertently. Anyway, hopefully you enjoyed that.