Lesson video

Hi, I'm Mr. Buckingham, and it's really nice to have you with me for today's lesson.

We're going to learn a lot, and I'll be here to help you all the way through.

Let's get to work.

Today's lesson is called "Using apostrophes for contraction, singular possession and plural possession." And it comes from my speech, punctuation, parenthesis and apostrophes.

By the end of today's lesson, we'll be able to accurately punctuate sentences, including apostrophes for contraction, singular possession, and plural possession.

Now, apostrophes are probably one of the punctuation marks that adults get wrong most often and that's mostly because we use them for several different things in English.

So by the end of today's lesson, I'm hoping we'll have really mastered all the different ways we can use an apostrophe to make sure that our writing is really accurate, and so we can really show off just how good our writing is.

Let's make a start.

Here are our keywords for today's lesson.

My turn, your turn.

Apostrophe for contraction, apostrophe for possession, singular and plural.

Well done, now, an apostrophe for contraction is a punctuation mark used to contract two words together.

An apostrophe for possession is a punctuation mark used to show if a noun belongs to another singular or plural noun.

Now that word singular means only one and plural means more than one.

Let's look at our lesson outline.

We're going to start off by looking at apostrophes used for contraction.

Then we'll move on to looking at singular possession.

And finally, plural possession, all using apostrophes in different ways.

In English, particularly when we're speaking or writing informally, we use contracted forms to show two words connected together.

Here are some examples.

"They'll meet us at the restaurant." She asked, "Where's the yacht docked?" "I didn't suggest that at all", he cried.

"Don't interrupt", snapped Mrs. Begum.

So you can see there in purple the contracted forms, they're made from two words contracted together.

So they'll is made up of they will.

Where's is the contracted form of where is, didn't is the contracted form of did not, and don't is the contracted form of do not.

So the contracted form is made up of those two words pushed together with an apostrophe.

So she had would be she'd, and you can see that here with the apostrophe where there's two words being pushed together.

So what are the two words represented by the contracted form in each piece of direct speech here? And we often use apostrophes for contraction in direct speech because we tend to be speaking more informally.

So can you find the two words represented by those contracted forms? Pause the video and have a go.

Okay, let's take a look.

In A, what's is the contracted form of what is? Who've is the contracted form of who have, mightn't is the contracted form of might not.

And they'd is the contracted form of they would, great job if you've got those.

Now we've seen that an apostrophe can be used for contraction, where we push two words together to make the shorter contracted form.

So for instance, she and will can be contracted to she'll.

So we've got the two words we've contracted and then the contracted form, she will makes she'll.

Now, usually the apostrophe takes the place of the letters that have been removed from the start of the second word.

So we can see in will, we've lost that W and that I and the apostrophe has gone where those letters would've been.

Here are some more examples.

I and would could be contracted to I'd.

And we've lost the W, O, U and L.

So that's where the apostrophe goes, where those would have been.

We've got she and is, you know, that makes she's, so we've lost that I, and we've put the apostrophe where the I would've been.

And finally who and have, you know, that would be who've.

We've lost the H and the A.

And so that's where the apostrophe goes.

So what's the contracted form of each of the following pairs of words? Pause the video and have a go.

Okay, let's take a look.

What are are becomes what're? Which loses that a there, which is why the apostrophe is after the T.

Should have become, should've.

We've lost the H and the A.

So the apostrophe goes where they would've been.

Let us becomes let's, we've lost that U, so that's where the apostrophe goes.

And finally, what will becomes what'll, so we've lost that W and the I.

So that's where the apostrophe goes.

Great job.

Now, it's not the case that when we contract two words together, we always lose letters from the start of the second word.

Some contractions drop a letter from inside a word instead.

So for example, could and not, we know that could and not contract to make, couldn't.

And we're actually losing this O in the middle of the second word to make the contracted form couldn't with the apostrophe between the N and the T.

Some contractions even add in a letter.

When we contract will and not, we're losing this O from inside not, but we add one after the W, which is in the start of will.

So we end up with won't, will not makes won't.

Now, all contractions that use not put that apostrophe between the N and the T like we see and won't, so can and not makes can't, and then would and not makes wouldn't.

And each time we've put the apostrophe between the N and the T in that last part of the word.

So what's the contracted form of each of the following pairs of words? Pause the video and have a think.

Okay, let's take a look.

Were not becomes weren't.

We've lost that O, and we've got the apostrophe between the N and the T, shall not become shan't.

Again, we've lost that O.

We've also lost those two Ls.

So notice here how the apostrophe doesn't go after the A, it goes after the N.

It must not, it's mustn't.

We've just lost this O and it should not, it shouldn't.

And again, we've just lost the O.

So whenever we have a contracted form which started off with a not, we always put the apostrophe between the N and the T.

Really good job.

Now here's a really important little skill we need to learn.

The word it's is a contraction for it is, we have it and is, and we contract them to make it is.

We've removed that I, so the apostrophe goes between the T and the S.

So we can use that like this.

We could say it's such a nuisance.

It's a privilege to be here.

It's definitely raining outside.

It's not relevant.

In each of those cases, we mean it is not relevant.

It is definitely running outside.

But we've done a contracted form using it is to make it's.

Now adults sometimes get confused about this bit.

The word its without the apostrophe, like you see here is not a contraction.

It shows what belongs to it.

So for instance, parliament closed its doors for the summer.

I took its temperature.

The horse bruised its leg.

The restaurant changed its menu.

In each of these cases, the word its is showing us something belonging to it.

It is not short for it is, we don't mean parliament closed it is doors for the summer.

We don't mean the horse bruised it is leg.

So you've got to be really careful when we're using its, do we mean the one with the apostrophe, which is a contracted form of it is, or do we mean the one without the apostrophe, which is showing us something belonging to it.

So the apostrophes have been removed from all these sentences.

Which sentences should have an apostrophe for contraction? Post video and see if you can work it out.

Okay, let's see what you got.

For A, we mean it is not necessary to do that.

So yes, we would put an apostrophe there.

For B, we mean the muscles belonging to it, to the cat.

So no, no apostrophe.

For C, we mean it is an absolute bargain.

So yes, we'd use an apostrophe.

And for D, we mean the characteristics belonging to it to the school.

So no apostrophe is needed there.

Really well done if you spotted those two apostrophes for contraction for it is to make it's, good job.

Now let's do our first task for this lesson.

I want you to rewrite each sentence using apostrophes for contraction wherever it's appropriate.

So if you can see two words in these sentences which you think can be contracted to make the contracted form using an apostrophe, then I'd like you to add it in, pause the video and have a go.

Okay, let's have a look at what these sentences would look like with those apostrophes for contraction added in.

We would say it's a great opportunity, but we'll have to make some sacrifices.

We'd say, I don't appreciate your behaviour, and I'd like to see an improvement.

We'd say she's and she'll in number three.

We'd say I'll and it's in number four.

We'd say isn't and doesn't in number five.

And we'd say what're and it's in number six.

Now just take a minute now to check that you've got the apostrophe in the right position in those words, wherever it should be to show that contracted form.

Really well done.

Now we've had a look at apostrophes for contraction, we're now going to move on to looking at apostrophes used for singular possession.

Now we know that a noun is a person, a place or a thing and nouns can be singular or plural.

So singular nouns might look like this.

We could say vegetable, rhythm, loaf and quiz.

All of these are only one, they are singular.

Plural nouns may look like this, vegetables, rhythms, loaves, quizzes.

There's more than one, they're plural.

And a singular or a plural noun can possess another singular or plural noun.

It possesses it, it has it, it owns it.

So we could think of it like this.

We could say things like the temperature belonging to the water, opinions belonging to Sam and roles belonging to the actors.

So if you look at that first example, we've got the temperature, a singular noun, belonging to the water, another singular noun.

We've got opinions, a plural noun, belonging to Sam, a singular noun.

And we've got rolls, a plural noun, belonging to the actors, a plural noun.

So we've always got to think, is the thing that has it, the thing which possesses the noun, plural or singular? So when a singular noun possesses another noun, we usually add apostrophe S to that first noun, the one doing the possession to show that possession.

And we call this an apostrophe for singular possession.

For instance, we could talk about Sophia's explanation, Sophia's achievements, Sophia's temperature.

In all these cases, we've got a singular noun here.

Sophia, at the start, there's only one of Sophia.

Then we've got the apostrophe S after her name to show that singular possession.

And then we've got the noun that belongs to the singular noun.

And notice how two of those are singular nouns, explanation and temperature.

And one is plural, achievements.

That doesn't matter.

What we're interested in is whether Sophia is a singular or plural noun.

And it's singular, so we put apostrophe S to show that singular possession.

So Mrs. Begum writes her signature on a form, which sentence showed this possession correctly with an apostrophe? They all say, Mrs. Begum's signature is very elaborate, but which one uses an apostrophe for singular possession correctly? Pause the video and have a think.

Okay, hopefully you spotted that it's C.

Here we've got the name, Mrs. Begum, which is a singular noun followed by apostrophe S, and then by the noun signature, which belongs to her, which she possesses.

Great job, now, sometimes we place adjectives between a singular noun and the noun it possesses, but we use the apostrophe in the exact same way.

Here are some examples.

We could say the song's catchy rhythm made us dance.

So in this case, we have the singular noun song, followed by the apostrophe S, followed by the adjective, catchy, and then rhythm, which is the noun that song possesses.

In the same way we could say, Andeep's rumbling stomach made us laugh, or the government's latest decisions caused a controversy.

That means a big discussion.

Or we could say Jun's constant interruptions annoyed me.

In each case, we've got an apostrophe for singular possession, the song's, Andeep's, the government's, Jun's.

And if we look at one of those in more detail, we can see the exact structure we've got here.

We've got our singular noun, Jun.

We've got the apostrophe S to show possession.

We've got the adjective.

And then finally, the noun that the singular noun possesses.

So Jacob has two favourite programmes.

Which of these sentences shows this possession correctly with an apostrophe? Pause the video, and have a think.

Okay, hopefully you spotted that it is B.

Here we've got Jacob, the singular noun, followed by apostrophe S, followed by the adjective favourite and then the noun programmes, which is the noun that the singular noun Jacob possesses.

Well, if you spotted it, now we've seen that usually when a singular noun possesses another noun, we add apostrophe S at the end of that singular noun.

But if that singular noun ends in an S, we put the apostrophe after the S and we don't add another one.

Let me show you.

We would say Lucas' nosy neighbours.

Lucas ends an S.

We could say the class' work was fine.

We could say Brussels' only football team.

The town or city of Brussels ends in S already.

So here we've got a singular noun that ends in S, Lucas, the class and Brussels.

We've added the apostrophe after the S.

We haven't added another S.

And then we've got the noun that belongs to that singular noun.

The nosy neighbours belong to Lucas.

We've put the apostrophe after the S.

So let's try an example.

The town of Lewis has a leisure centre.

Which of these sentences shows this possession correctly with an apostrophe, all the sentences say, Lewis' excellent leisure centre has two pools, but which one has the apostrophe correctly to show singular possession by that one noun Lewis? Pause the video and have a go.

Well done, hopefully you spotted that it is C.

So here we've got Lewis, which ends in an S already.

So we've added the apostrophe after the S to show that that leisure centre belongs to that one singular noun Lewis, which ends in an S, great job.

Izzy has done some marvellous work.

Which sentence shows this idea correctly? Using an apostrophe for singular possession.

And notice how Izzy does not end in S.

So think carefully about how we need to do this one.

Pause the video and have a try.

Well done, hopefully you saw that it is A this time.

So Izzy is the singular noun.

It doesn't end in S, we've added apostrophe S and that shows us that the work belongs to the singular noun Izzy.

Good job, okay, let's try our second task for this session.

I want you to write a sentence using each of the ideas I'm going to show you, using an apostrophe for singular possession.

And if you can, you might might want to add an adjective.

Here's an example.

You might have this idea, the bargains belonging to the shop.

So we could write the sentence, "We enjoyed the shop's great bargains." So I've used an apostrophe S after shop to show the singular possession of those bargains.

And I've added the adjective, great, to describe those bargains in more detail.

So here are your ideas.

I'd like to write them into sentences using that apostrophe for singular possession.

Pause the video and have a go.

Okay, so here are some example sentences that use an apostrophe for singular possession.

We could say, the yacht's huge sails billowed in the wind.

Notice I put the apostrophe S after yachts because it doesn't end in S.

I could say Jun's temperature was rising rapidly.

I could say the restaurant's delicious food made it very popular.

I could say we used Aisha's new dictionary to check the spelling.

Mrs. Begum loves Andeep's great suggestion.

And the cemetery's eerie atmosphere made us all shiver.

So in each of these cases, we've actually used apostrophe S because none of the singular nouns ended in S on these occasions.

Really good job if you've managed to get that apostrophe before your S on these occasions.

And if you've got some adjectives in like I did with huge, delicious, new, great and eerie, you've done the even better job.

Well done.

Okay, let's finish our lesson by looking at apostrophes for plural possession.

Now, we've talked already about the difference between singular nouns and plural nouns.

We know that plural nouns means more than one and most plural nouns in English end in S.

So for instance, yachts, shoulders, muscles, soldiers, languages and vegetables all end in S.

So if we take this idea, the vegetables have a delicious taste, we can see that vegetables is a plural noun, and it already ends in S, vegetables end in a letter S.

So to show that possession, to show that the vegetables have that delicious taste, we need to add the apostrophe after the S.

So we would say, I enjoyed the vegetables' delicious taste.

And here we can see we have S apostrophe because we've got the word already ending an S and we're adding the apostrophe after it.

So when a plural noun possesses another noun, we usually add that apostrophe for possession after the S.

So if we wanted to describe this idea, that children are clapping the rhythms to several songs, we could say we clapped the songs' rhythms. We've got songs already ending in S.

So we've added the apostrophe after it.

For this idea, the yachts have billowing sails.

We could write this sentence.

We raised the yachts' billowing sails.

Here we've got S apostrophe, because yachts already ended in S.

For this idea, our neighbours have a vicious cat, we could say, we fed the neighbours' vicious cat.

Look how neighbours has S apostrophe because it already ended in S because it's a plural noun.

So each time we've got the plural noun ending in S.

And so we've added the apostrophe after that S.

So how would the apostrophe for plural possession be used for each of these ideas? Here's an example.

The difficult pronunciation of the words could become, the words' difficult pronunciation with the apostrophe after the S.

Because words already end in S.

Here are your ideas.

Pause the video and see if you can think of how we would show that apostrophe for plural possession in each of these cases.

Have a go.

Okay, let's take a look.

The huge wheels belonging to the vehicles, would be, the vehicles' huge wheels with the apostrophe after the S.

For number two, we would say my shoulders' sore muscles, with the apostrophe after the S.

That means both shoulders have sore muscles because we've used the plural shoulders, not shoulder.

And then for number three, we would say the dictionaries' blank pages.

So there again, the apostrophe is after the S, because we had the plural noun dictionaries ending in S already.

Great job if you got this.

Now the trouble is that not all plural nouns do end in S.

For instance, we would say children ending an N.

Men, women, geese, feet, people and sheep.

None of these end in S already, but they're all plurals.

Women means more than one woman, feet means more than one foot.

So for all these plural nouns, we add apostrophe S just as we did for singular nouns.

Because we don't have an S to work with already.

We add apostrophe S.

So we could say the children's suggestions, the men's recommendations, the women's sacrifices, the geese's elegant wings.

My feet's bruised soles.

So look how each of these plural didn't end in S, so we added apostrophe S when we showed that possession with the apostrophe.

So when we decide how to use the apostrophe for plural possession, we can follow some steps.

First of all, we take the noun.

So for instance, deer and thief, then we think, well, let's make it plural.

So the plural of deer is actually deer ending in R, and the plural of thief is thieves.

So then we think, does the plural end in S.

For deer, no, it doesn't.

But for thieves, yes, it does.

Now, if it doesn't end in S, we have to add apostrophe S.

If it does end in S, we add the apostrophe after the S.

So for deer, we could say that deer's footprints, meaning the footprints of more than one deer.

But for thieves, we could say the thieves' fingerprints with the apostrophe after the S, because it already had the S.

So we've added the apostrophe afterwards.

So which sentence here uses an apostrophe for plural possession correctly? Pause the video and have a think.

Good job, hopefully you spotted that it is C on this occasion, children is already a plural noun, but it doesn't end in S.

So we add apostrophe S to show that possession, great job.

So let's do our final task for this lesson.

I want you to write a sentence again for each of my ideas, but this time using an apostrophe for plural possession with an adjective if you can manage it.

So for instance, the weapons belonging to the soldiers is an idea where we have the plural noun soldiers ending in S already.

So I could say the soldiers' deadly weapons were kept in a safe place.

I've put the apostrophe after the S because soldiers already ends in S as a plural.

So here are your ideas.

Pause the video and see if you can make them into sentences with that apostrophe and the correct place, have a go.

Okay, here are some example sentences using that apostrophe for plural possession.

We could have said, Mrs. Begum was extremely impressed with the children's excellent explanations.

Now this time we've used children, it didn't end in S.

So we've added apostrophe S.

For this one I put the cows' stomachs with the apostrophe after the S.

For three, the women's bathroom, women doesn't end an S.

So I've added apostrophe S there.

For number four, the schools' IT systems. That means the IT systems belonging to several schools with the apostrophe after the S.

For number five, we looked up and we gazed at the geese's broad gently flapping wings.

Geese ends in E, so I've added apostrophe S.

And finally we've got people's professions.

People end in E so we had to add apostrophe S for that one too, great job if you managed to get something similar.

Okay, let's review our learning for this lesson.

We learned that apostrophes can be used to show contraction and possession.

And we learned that an apostrophe for contraction allows us to join two words together into a shorter contracted form.

And we often use these in direct speech because we're being informal.

An apostrophe for singular possession helps us show that a noun belongs to just one noun and an apostrophe for plural possession helps us to show that a noun belongs to more than one other noun.

Really well done in this lesson.

We've covered an awful lot of ground.

I've done a fantastic job to keep up and to learn these rules to help us make our writing even more accurate.

Well done.