Advanced (plural) possession | The Apostrophe | Punctuation | Khan Academy Video Lecture | Complete Course on English Grammar: Upgrade your Speaking & Listening - Personal Skills

hello grammarians hello David hello
Paige so today we're going to talk about
plural possession meaning when more than
one person or thing or animal owns
something else and this like most other
types of possession tends to involve
apostrophes make sense checks out yeah
cool oh so it's just apostrophe s right
like I mean why are we even making this
video well no apostrophe s is a rule
that applies when the possessive noun is
singular so for example the dogs bone
right that's one dog's bone one singular
dog possessing one bone exactly what if
I wanted to talk about like five dogs
bones like they had a bump like a big ol
pile of bones right so that is a case
where we will not use apostrophe s what
I'm sorry to dissapoint I'm not
disappointed I'm just surprised not
actually surprised that's just a stage
trick so if we're talking about five
dogs and their bones we say five dogs
' bones and there's no s after the
apostrophe so it goes s apostrophe so we
have the S for the plural and then an
apostrophe for possession but not a
second s for possession right we don't
want like the dogs is bones okay okay
but the the apostrophe at the end isn't
about there being multiple bones right
it's about there being multiple dogs
yeah so even if it's multiple dogs and
they're possessing a singular thing um
so five dogs all had the same favorite
dog park right because it's the best doc
park okay in the world okay so in that
case you would say something like the
dog's favorite Park right park is still
singular but dogs is plural so that's
why it's just apostrophe and no s
afterwards so this also only applies to
plural nouns that end in s right so if
I'm talking about one of our irregular
plural nouns like mice or
geese or men or women I would still add
apostrophe s right like okay so I'm
imagining a department store mm-hmm and
there's a men's section a women's
section and a mices section okay
that is interesting department store
well it doesn't take up that much floor
space for the mouse section so I get
that if there's more than one dog it's
do GS ' if it's a plural irregular noun
that doesn't end in s then it's still
just apostrophe s like regular
possession what about family names oh
okay that's a good question
so let's say there's a family with the
last name Harper okay and I am going to
visit the Harper's house okay right so
that's the house that belongs to all of
the Harper's the Harper family okay so
that seems pretty straightforward but
what if we're talking about a name that
ends in s like burns okay yeah that can
make things a little bit complicated the
way that names that end in s become
plural is by adding es to the end of
them so Burns becomes Burns's and so
Burns is without the apostrophe is how
it refers to that family unit in total
also right like it's mr. burns and the
burnses or dr. Jones and the Joneses
exactly okay so then when you want to
make that possessive as in the burnses
house you make it plural by adding that
es and then put the apostrophe after
that cool
so plural things that end in s don't
have a second s after the apostrophe
yeah but irregular plurals like men
women mice do yeah Thank You page you're
welcome you can learn anything Dave it
out page out