Possessives - BrainPop UK
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00:00This is my town, robot, and it ain't big enough for the two of us.
00:25Whatevs, it's still my town.
00:28Dear Tim and Moby, What are possessives?
00:32Thanks, Tidus.
00:34In grammar, possessives are words and phrases that indicate possession, in other words,
00:39that something belongs to something else.
00:42Take possessive nouns.
00:44A possessive noun is a special version of a regular noun.
00:48It tells us that something belongs to someone or something.
00:53Well, to turn a regular noun into a possessive noun, you have to add a little extra something.
00:59For singular nouns, it's usually an apostrophe followed by an S.
01:04Let's just pretend, for a second, that this town belongs to Moby.
01:08To indicate Moby's possession of the town, I add an apostrophe S to Moby.
01:13But doing that is not a universal rule.
01:16For example, what happens when the noun you want to turn into a possessive already ends with an S?
01:22Or what if a noun ends in a double S?
01:26Unfortunately, the answer isn't cut and dried.
01:30Some people like to put an apostrophe S at the end, and others prefer to just add an apostrophe after that final S.
01:38The same rule applies when you're dealing with nouns that end in a silent S,
01:43like Arkansas and Illinois.
01:46Some people add an apostrophe S, and others just tack on an apostrophe.
01:50It's one of those rare times in grammar when two different answers are both correct.
01:58Nope, plural nouns are a different story.
02:01As you know, most plural nouns already end in S.
02:05When you've got a plural noun, you just add an apostrophe to the end of the word, never an apostrophe S.
02:11So, the dog's bones are in Fred's hands.
02:17Huh, I didn't even think of that.
02:19For nouns that have irregular plural forms, like how mice is the plural of mouse,
02:24go with the original apostrophe S rule.
02:27And some nouns don't change at all when they're pluralized,
02:30like deer and moose can refer to one animal or many animals.
02:38Hey, save some of those for me!
02:42Anyway, in this case, you add an apostrophe S whether you're talking about one deer or a whole herd of them.
02:49That was a good catch, Moby.
02:54Hold your horses, partner.
02:56There's one other thing I need to tell you about possessives.
03:00Possessive pronouns are special versions of regular pronouns like I, you, and she.
03:06But unlike nouns, they don't require any additional letters or apostrophes to show that something belongs to them.
03:12Instead, every pronoun has its very own one-of-a-kind possessive form.
03:18Since I own this town, it's also my town.
03:23It's mine, you hear?
03:26Uh, that's... that's true.
03:28Sometimes using of works better than the possessive, especially in poetry and literature.
03:33For example, the lyric,
03:35the land of the free and the home of the brave
03:38wouldn't sound right as the free's land and the brave's home.
03:43And wrath's grapes wouldn't be as catchy as the grapes of wrath.
03:48It's really a judgment call.
03:50Depending on the context, you have to decide when that of construction sounds better.
03:57Uh, Moby?
04:00You think that sounds better?
04:02Man, you really have a tin ear.