Hi. James. Today I want to talk about something very specific. I love to teach on different
subjects in English, but today is going to be actually more of a response to a video
I done earlier, and I hope this will be helpful to you. It's about the apostrophe s, but specifically
I want to talk about it's the idea of possessive. Now, I had one or two questions about James's,
because I said James's pen, and a few people said, "James's pen? No, you can't say it. It's
wrong." One person even said, "I am a lecturer, and you can't say that." So, what I want to do
is explain here why you may hear that opinion, or if you hear something different, why both may be
seemingly opposite, but they're both true. Let's go to the board. Okay? So, we're doing apostrophe s,
and when we talk about the apostrophe s, what we have to remember is this. The general rule
in English is, well, let's do something else. Let's talk about the simple present. In the
simple present, how do we identify the third person singular? I hope it's not too technical
now, okay? How do we identify the third person singular? When we have verbs, we add an s, right?
When you do that, you always add an s to the verb, right? Plus s to the verb, and then we know we
have the third person singular. It's a rule, and we stand by that rule for clarity. When you know
there's an s at the end of the verb, you know it's the third person singular. Why am I talking about
this? Well, it actually leads back to why we have the apostrophe s on the possessive. The apostrophe
s on the possessive form indicates singular possession. Okay? So, it indicates singular
possession. Now, the problem is if you were dealing with the simple present, and you forget
it's put on the s, we automatically assume it must be plural. So, we say to be consistent,
and to make it easier for other people to understand, we always add the s on the third
person singular in the simple present. The rule is similar with the apostrophe s. So that we know
it's singular, we add the apostrophe s. If we do this, we know it's plural. Now, here's the problem
or the difficulty. Sometimes, strange words appear. These words, bad words, they end in an s,
like this. And it causes some people to have a problem actually saying the s. Well, it doesn't,
but for some they would say so. Now, this is where the apostrophe s gets a little bit confusing,
but it's not really if you follow along. Now, remember, the apostrophe s means single. So,
this is James' pen. I've been alive for some time, and I've known that it's been James' pen,
James' bed, James' condom for a long time. Okay? But I know that there is another part to this
rule, and it goes something like this. If the pronunciation is difficult, then we get rid of
the s. That's where this came from when people said this is okay, this is the official rule,
s apostrophe, and that's what you do. It's from the pronunciation. Now, what they say about this
is you should add this for the singular. That's how you should do it. If you don't do that,
you take off the s. Where the rule comes in, you must be consistent, and this is important to
remember. If you choose to do this, sorry, this form, you must be consistent throughout your
writing. Otherwise, it becomes confusing. When you do this form, it is understood that this
means possession. S apostrophe means possession throughout. If you add the s, apostrophe s,
and you do say John's book, apostrophe s, you must be consistent throughout the rest.
This is what's followed in most universities in the world, or should I say Western universities.
Now, if you have any other questions on that, well, actually, let me just write that on the
board for you. So remember, the rule is to be consistent. If you do this, s apostrophe,
you have to stay with the s apostrophe. If you do this, you have to do apostrophe s throughout.
Now, in a second, I'm going to show you an example because this is from London, England,
actually, where I was born. You'll see a place, and this is where English started,
England, yeah. You're going to see like, well, you'll look just at the screen.
Okay. Yeah, that's my name with James's place. Yeah. See that? My name. Okay. So, if you ever,
on one more note, please, people, when you address and say somebody's wrong,
and I am human, so there probably is going to be a time I'm wrong, and I'm going to have to
apologize. One should always say, I think you made a mistake. If you are going to say someone's
wrong, always argue from proof, not from position of authority. Okay, boys and girls? Okay. It's a
quick lesson. Anyway, look, I want you to have a great day. If you have any other questions,
please ask, and you can also consult other grammar guides if you're not too sure. You'll
find that the rule is, apostrophe s is the king, and it should be always apostrophe s. However,
okay, in the case, if you want to be consistent, you don't add, then you can do this one,
where it's s apostrophe. But remember, the king, the key rule is consistency. You see James's
place. Yeah. Anyway, I will talk to you later. Hey, make sure you come back to my favorite spot.
I'm always here. www.engvid, eng as in English, vid as in video.com. Okay. I like to call it.
Yeah. Have a great day. I'll talk to you soon.