The apostrophe. The possessive case, or Saxon genitive, clearly explained.

Welcome to my study today .

We're going to have a look at the apostrophe that shows us in our written work that something belongs to a noun .

Grammar professors call it the Saxon genitive .

But I think these days you hear more possessive case , I'll give you some exercises to practice it and I'll tell you an English joke to see that you've really understood how the apostrophe works .

At the end of the video , I'll give you some synonyms which will help you expand your vocabulary for your written work in exams .

First , we'll look at singular nouns .

Do we say the hat of the man is holding the dog of my friend was called Fido .

The tail of the horse is long or this ?

Well , in English , we really express it this way .

The man's hat is white .

My friend's dog was called Fido .

The horse's tail is long .

We use the apostrophe S to show possession or association mainly though for humans or animals , not so much for inanimate things .

And I'll explain that a little more later for plural lands , it's slightly different .

Do we say the house of the boys , the laughter of the girls or do we say this ?

The boy's house , the girl's laughter .

You notice the apostrophe follows the s but when words are plural already like women , men and Children , we simply use an apostrophe .

Women's so we could say the women's dresses , the men's race , the children's joke .

But there are some words that you must watch out for with groups or organizations like parliament .

We can express the possessive in two ways .

We can say the decision of parliament or parliament's decision with places .

We can do the same thing , the world's population or the population of the world .

But where we have more than one noun , we usually only put the apostrophe after the second one like this .

Peter and Susan's wedding .

Mr and Mrs Jones's house .

Now days of the week are important and most English people , I'm afraid get this wrong .

If I said I've got a week's holiday , you notice we have the apostrophe s after the word week , it's a single week and it's possessive .

He has three weeks .

Holiday weeks is plural .

So the apostrophe follows the s be careful with days of the week .

If I'm going to a shop in England , I tend to say I'm going to the greengrocer's notice the apostrophe at the end , not the greengrocer's shop , but I'm going to the greengrocer or I'm going to the butcher's here are some exercises for you to practice .

Notice that there are some special cases which I've shown like classical names and sometimes we can't make up our minds which one to use .

You may see both forms .

But if you come to London and you travel on the underground , you may see the station Saint James's Park , which you notice is spelt with an apostrophe .

S look at number three in exercise .

A , you notice it hasn't changed the leg of the table .

A table is inanimate so we tend not to use a possessive .

We don't say the table's leg .

That would sound rather strange to me .

In English , there are some exceptions , but you'll just have to watch out for those .

And now to test if you really understood , I'm going to give you the English joke .

A grammar professor goes to the market to buy some fruit .

He notices the spelling on the stall and he says to the owner , excellent spelling sir .

But carrots really .

And the owner says to the professor actually , Professor , I'm Mister Carrot .

If you understood that , perhaps you could explain it in the comments below .

Here are our synonyms for the verb to permit , allow , make possible , give permission , grant and accord .

Oh , goodness , this is at the time when I'm sorry , I really must go because I'm going to the dentist this afternoon .

Next time we'll look at adjectives of quality .

So I say goodbye .

Thanks for watching , please .

Like below .

But