Noun

A noun is the name of anything: a person, a place, a thing, a class, a group, a quality or a feeling. Look around the room. The shirt being worn is a noun. The marker in a hand is a noun. The board is a noun, and so is the surface of the board. Whatever we call by a name, that name is a noun.

The exam does not ask for the definitions of the kinds. It asks what each kind does to the article, the number and the verb. So learn the kinds by their behaviour.

1. Proper noun. It is the name of one particular person, place or thing: Radhika, Delhi, Ganga, Sun, Monday, Samsung, India.

• It starts with a capital letter, whether it comes at the start or in the middle of a sentence.
• It is singular, and it takes a singular verb. If ten people are called Kuldeep, the word does not become a common noun; they are still ten separate individuals.
• Articles and adjectives are not normally used with it.

✔ Delhi is the capital of India.
✔ Samsung is a company of South Korea.

> Some proper nouns do take the: the Ganga, the Taj Mahal, the USA, the Himalayas. We study this in the Article chapter.

2. Common noun. It is the name of a whole category or class: girl, city, country, river, star, day, company. Delhi is a city, and Mumbai is a city, so city belongs to both and is common. Radhika, on the other hand, is not a class with a shared quality, so it is proper.

Common nouns can be singular or plural, and articles and adjectives can be used with them.

✔ Employees work hard for this company.
✔ My mother is a housewife.
✔ I want to live in a city.

> A singular countable noun is never used alone. It always needs a determiner (a, an, the, my, this ...). ✔ I have a pen. ✘ I have pen.

3. Material noun. It is the name of a matter or substance from which other things are made: cloth, iron, water, silver, gold, milk. We do not count materials; we see them as a quantity. So a material noun is usually uncountable, it does not take a / an, and it takes a singular verb.

✔ Water is essential for life.
✔ Diamond is a precious stone.
✔ Gold is very expensive.

4. Abstract noun. It is the name of a feeling, quality, action or state: love, honesty, truth, knowledge, experience, childhood. It has no physical form, so it cannot be touched, tasted or smelled; you can only feel it in your mind. Usually a / an is not used with it.

✔ Honesty is the best policy.
✔ Love never dies.

[[say:radhika| Wind cannot be touched either. Is wind an abstract noun?]]

[[say:sir| No. Air has a physical form. Fill a tyre with air and the tyre swells up. A red dupatta flies in the wind. That means it is a material thing. The exam does not ask about such borderline words, so no time should be spent on them.]]

Most abstract nouns are uncountable, but not all. Lie, dream, hope can be counted.

✔ Don't tell a lie.
✔ Dreams are more beautiful than reality.

Abstract nouns from other words. In the exam the real work with abstract nouns is to turn an adjective or a verb into a noun, because the slot in the sentence needs a noun.

A collective noun, which shows a group, is taken up in the next unit.

A collective noun is the name of a group. Inside it there are individuals, but the word itself names the whole: army, flock, class, jury, bunch, committee, family, crowd. Articles and adjectives can be used with it. (Birds is not a collective noun. It is just the plural of bird.)

Number. Most collective nouns can be singular or plural, as the meaning needs.

• Singular collective noun, seen as one unit: usually a singular verb (the full discussion is in the Subject-Verb Agreement chapter).
• Singular collective noun, when the members are acting separately, or when division is shown: a plural verb can be used.
• Plural form (families, teams, juries): always a plural verb.

[[parse: S=His family | V=supports | O=him]]

✔ His family supports him. (unity)
✔ His family are settled in Mumbai and Delhi. (division)
✔ Our families are meeting tomorrow. (plural)

A group stays one group when two groups join. Five cows make a herd; five more cows join them and it is still a herd of cattle. But India's team and Pakistan's team standing together are two teams, so teams is right.

The collective names of animals are asked again and again.

Crowd is a collective noun too, and it stands for many people, so the noun after of has to be plural: a crowd of workers, not a crowd of worker. Public is a collective noun that never takes -s.

✔ The public is not satisfied with the new act.
✘ The publics are not satisfied with the new act. (use the public)

A countable noun can be counted: boy, pen, friend. It has two forms, singular (one) and plural (more than one).

An uncountable noun cannot be counted. Whatever cannot be counted is always one, so it has only one form, the singular. Examples: water, fear, honesty, furniture.

1. Singular countable noun. It never stands alone. A determiner (a, an, the, my, this ...) is compulsory.

✔ I have a pen.
✘ I have pen.

2. Plural countable noun. A determiner is not compulsory. Boys are honest is right as it stands; the boys are honest is right too. Choose by the meaning of the sentence. A / an cannot be used because they mean one.

3. Uncountable noun. It has no plural, so no -s. It takes no number word. It takes no a / an, because an carries the sense of one; only the can come. The verb is singular.

✔ Water is life.
✘ Waters are life. (in the sense of liquid water)
✘ Many work was done by him. (use much)
✘ Few milk was left. (use little)

Use much and little with uncountable nouns, and many and few with plural countable nouns. Likewise each and every go with a singular countable noun: each question, not each questions.

How to know which is which? Two simple tests.

Test 1: cut it into pieces. Take the thing in a bigger form and in a smaller form, or break it into bits. If every bit is still called by the same name, the noun is uncountable. If the name changes, it is countable.

• Soap: a small piece is still soap. Uncountable.
• Paper: a sheet is a page, but a torn bit is still paper. Uncountable.
• Water, bread, chalk, hair, glass, money: the bits keep the name. Uncountable. (₹1 is also money, but "500 money" is not said.)
• Box: break it and it is no longer a box. Countable.

[[say:radhika| Soap looks like something we can count. Is it countable?]]

[[say:sir| It looks countable, but it is uncountable. Break the cake of soap in two and both pieces are still soap. When the name does not change on cutting, we are looking at an uncountable noun.]]

Test 2: the thing has everything but no identity of its own. A table is furniture, a chair is furniture, a door is furniture, but nothing is called "a furniture". The name is the name of a group of different things. Luggage is the same: five bags, two bags or one bag, all are luggage. Jewellery, stationery, crockery, clothing work in the same way: you count rings and pens and plates, never the group name.

An uncountable noun is always written in the singular and takes a singular verb. We never add -s or -es to make it plural. The exam picks the same names again and again, so it pays to know them in groups.

1. Information and knowledge type: advice, information, news, education, knowledge, experience, evidence, research, progress, damage, harm, hatred, access, weather, travel, fire, fuel, health, mischief, behaviour, traffic, money, work.

2. Groups of objects: furniture, luggage, baggage, jewellery, stationery, crockery, cutlery, machinery, clothing, equipment, hardware, junk, poetry, garbage, music, scenery, handicraft.

3. Food and materials: food, bread, paper, glass, chalk, hair, lunch, dinner, breakfast.

✘ He gave me some advices. (use advice)
✘ I have bought a few furnitures. (use furniture)
✘ You will get all the informations. (use information)
✘ They left their luggages at the station. (use luggage)
✘ The sceneries of Ooty were wonderful. (use The scenery of Ooty was wonderful)
✘ All our furnitures were spoiled. (use All our furniture was spoiled)

Why do these stay singular? Because each one is the name of a whole, not of a single thing.

• Advice and suggestion. A suggestion is one single idea, so it is countable. Many suggestions put together make advice, so advice is uncountable.
• Evidence and proof. Evidence is uncountable, proof is countable: significant evidence, but two proofs.
• Traffic. Ten vehicles, a hundred or a thousand, all make traffic. There is no fixed number, so it cannot be counted.
• Music and poetry. Songs and poems can be counted, but not music and poetry.
• Time in the sense of duration is uncountable. We say too much time, never too much times, and I had no time to watch the movie.

Remember also that an uncountable noun takes much or little, and a singular verb. So Plenty of information was given to me is right, and were given is wrong.

✘ Plenty of information were given to me at the tourist office.
✔ Plenty of information was given to me at the tourist office.

> The exam can ask anything, even a word that was never asked before. Everything was asked for the first time at some point, so learn the whole list, not only what came recently.

We cannot put a number before an uncountable noun, but we can count it by a unit. The unit is countable, the thing is not: two pieces of advice, three cups of tea.

Choose the unit by sense. A cup holds tea, so a cup of tea is the usual phrase, and a glass of tea is fine too. A cup of blood is not said; a drop of blood or a litre of blood is. A piece of water is ridiculous: even one drop of water can be analysed, so write a drop of water or a litre of water.

✘ She gave me some advices. ✔ She gave me a piece of advice.
✘ There are many beautiful furniture in the room. ✔ There are many beautiful pieces of furniture in the room.

A / an with an adjective. A few uncountable nouns take a / an when an adjective comes before them and shows one particular kind or one occasion of the thing: Education, Knowledge, Experience, Lunch, Dinner, Breakfast, Help, Life, Hatred, Love, Sleep, Time, Understanding.

> Do not stretch this to every noun. Advice never takes a, even with an adjective: a good piece of advice. And He is making good progress has no a either.

Work. The sense decides.

✘ He has an important work to do. (use important work)
✔ This poem is a work of a person in love.
✔ I started the construction works.
✘ She has many works to do in the office. (use much work)

Noun or verb spelling. In some pairs the noun and the verb are spelt differently. When the slot is a verb, do not use the noun form.

✘ They finally did what we advice them to do.
✔ They finally did what we advised them to do.

A singular countable noun becomes plural by the concepts below. Learn them in this order, from the common to the rare.

1. Usually add -s. boy → boys, cat → cats, pen → pens, girl → girls, book → books.

2. Ends in s, ss, sh, ch, x, z: add -es. fox → foxes, bus → buses, class → classes, box → boxes, glass → glasses, dish → dishes, flash → flashes, rash → rashes.

3. Ends in f / fe: change to -ves. wolf → wolves, life → lives, knife → knives, leaf → leaves.
Some words ending in f take only -s: chief → chiefs, roof → roofs, chef → chefs, gulf → gulfs, brief → briefs, if → ifs, belief → beliefs.

4. Ends in consonant + y: change y to -ies. baby → babies, city → cities, family → families, reply → replies, country → countries, lorry → lorries.
Vowel + y takes only -s: boy → boys, ray → rays, key → keys, toy → toys, donkey → donkeys, monkey → monkeys.

5. Ends in consonant + o: usually -es. mango → mangoes, tomato → tomatoes, hero → heroes, mosquito → mosquitoes, echo → echoes, cargo → cargoes.
Some take only -s: photo → photos, piano → pianos, kilo → kilos, dynamo → dynamos, maestro → maestros.

6. Double vowel at the end: -s. ratio → ratios, studio → studios, radio → radios, tree → trees, bee → bees, woe → woes.

7. The vowel changes. man → men, woman → women, goose → geese, tooth → teeth, foot → feet, mouse → mice. Child → children and ox → oxen are other old plurals. Children is already plural, so childrens is wrong.

8. Letters take an apostrophe + s: I → I's, T → T's, A → A's, E → E's, D → D's.

9. Numbers and abbreviations take only -s: BA → BAs, MA → MAs, MP → MPs, ATM → ATMs, 10 → 10s, 5 → 5s.

Words from Latin and Greek.

> These days data is usually treated as singular and takes a singular verb: This data is reliable.

Two plurals, two meanings.

One meaning in the singular, more in the plural.

An uncountable noun with -s changes its meaning.

✘ The young man had no manner. (use manners, meaning behaviour)
✔ The young man had no manners.
✘ With magnifying glass, we can observe minute insects. (a lens is one thing: with a magnifying glass)

Some nouns do not follow the usual -s pattern at all. Treat each of the three groups separately.

1. Same form in the singular and the plural. Adding -s or -es is wrong: *sheep, deer, swine, series, salmon, fish, innings, means, headquarters, aircraft, hovercraft*.

✔ There is one sheep.
✘ There are two sheeps. (use two sheep)
✔ India won by an innings and three runs.

• Fish is fish in both numbers. Fishes is used only when different species are meant. ✔ There are many fish in the pond. ✔ There is a fish in my fridge.
• Means (= a way, a medium) is countable and keeps its form. A / one means takes a singular verb; all / several means takes a plural verb. As the money one lives on, it is always plural. Mean is a noun (a medium), an adjective (selfish) and a verb (to signify).
• Earnings is always plural.
• Wages. If it means income, it is plural. If it means the result of something, it is singular. ✔ The wages of sin is death. ✔ His wages are not enough to feed his family.

2. Nouns that look singular but are plural: people, police, children, poultry, gentry, peasantry, clergy, vermin, cattle. They take no -s and a plural verb.

✔ The police have arrested the suspect.
✘ These stray cattles are roaming around the town. (use cattle)
✘ There are six peoples working together. (use six people)

People and children can be used with a number directly. With the others, the exam-safe forms are *5 heads of cattle, 5 policemen, 5 peasants*.

3. Nouns that look plural but are singular.

• The news: news.
• Subjects: mathematics, physics, politics, economics, ethics, statistics, linguistics, civics, athletics, phonetics.
• Diseases: measles, rickets, mumps.
• Games: billiards, dominoes.
• Others: shambles.

They take a singular verb.

✘ The news were greeted with astonishment. ✔ The news was greeted with astonishment.
✘ Billiards are known as the rich man's game. ✔ Billiards is known as the rich man's game.
✘ Measles have caused havoc in the town. ✔ Measles has caused havoc in the town.
✔ Mathematics is not easy to learn.

When a subject name is used in another sense, not as a subject, it is plural. Politics as a field of study is singular; politics as a person's political views is plural. Ethics is singular as a subject and plural as moral values.

✔ Politics is a very boring subject.
✔ His politics are not praiseworthy.

Summons. The noun summons has the plural summonses.

✘ She has received two summons in the past month. (use summonses)
✔ Manmohan received one summons from the court last year.

> News is the favourite of the examiner. When the subject is the news of his involvement in illegal activities, the verb agrees with news, not with activities.

Some nouns are used in the plural only. They have no singular form, so they take a plural verb and cannot take a / an.

Think of the first three rows: a pair of scissors has two blades, a pair of trousers has two legs, a pair of spectacles has two lenses. That is why the words come as a pair.

Counting them. For the tools, eyewear and clothing we use pair(s) of with a number.

✔ a pair of scissors, two pairs of jeans, a pair of binoculars
✘ There are two scissors in my drawer. (use two pairs of scissors)
✘ I have only a pants.
✘ I have only a pant.
✔ I have only a pair of pants.
✘ My friend Jatin usually wears a spectacle. (use spectacles)

Pair is a countable noun, so it takes a and a number: a pair of bangles, two pairs of shoes.

Nouns like savings, assets, archives, earnings are plural too, but they are not tools or clothes, so they never take pair of.

Words that look like adjectives. Some adjectives become plural nouns: valuable (adj.) → valuables (things of value), eatable → eatables, belonging → belongings, surrounding → surroundings, return → returns (profit).

✘ The thieves decamped with valuable worth Rs. 50,000. (use valuables)
✘ Government Stock offers safety, liquidity and attractive returned. (use returns)

A compound noun is made of two or more words that give one single sense: sister-in-law, commander-in-chief, check-in, passer-by. When a hyphen sits between the words, we also call it a hyphenated noun. Compounds are formed in different ways: with a hyphen (brother-in-law), without one (family business, computer table), as verb + preposition (break-in, breakup) or as noun + preposition + object (passer-by, runner-up).

The Concept for the plural is to find the main word and make that word plural.

1. Words ending in -ful. These show a container, and the -s goes at the end of the whole word.

Others: glassfuls, bucketfuls, mouthfuls, truckfuls, bagfuls.

✘ She grabbed handsful of the dirty snow. (use handfuls)
✘ Give me two spoonsful of sugar. (use spoonfuls)

2. Noun + preposition (+ object). The main noun is the one before the preposition, so only that noun takes the plural.

Others: commanders-in-chief, courts-of-inquiry, lookers-on, mothers-in-law, daughters-in-law, attorneys general.

✘ The game had three runner-ups. (use runners-up)
✘ My wife has two sister-in-laws. (use sisters-in-law)
✘ She speaks very highly of both her daughter-in-laws. (use daughters-in-law)

3. Verb + preposition. Here there is no noun to hold the plural, so the -s is added at the end, to the preposition.

Others: build-ups, take-aways, mix-ups, breakups.

✘ Radhika is trying to invest in three starts-up. (use start-ups)
✘ SSC releases two cuts-off for every examination. (use cut-offs)

Sometimes, instead of an adjective, we use another noun to describe a noun: bed room, story book, car driver, one-man army. The describing noun is a noun modifier. Because it does the work of an adjective, it is never plural. To make the whole phrase plural, only the main (last) noun is made plural.

The same happens with numbers and measures in front of a noun:

✔ an eight year old girl (not eight years old girl)
✔ a ten rupee note, two ten rupee notes
✔ a three-year degree course

The man / woman concept. When man or woman comes before a noun, ask what it is doing.

• If it tells the gender of the noun, make both plural: man employee → men employees, woman pilot → women pilots, woman doctor → women doctors.
• If it only tells the type or the object of the noun, make only the main noun plural: man eater → man eaters (the eater of men; man does not give the gender of the eaters).

Compare woman haters (people who hate women) with women haters (haters who are women).

Dozen, score, hundred, thousand, lakh, million, crore.

✘ We bought two dozens mangoes. ✔ We bought two dozen mangoes.
✘ There are hundred of superstitions in the country. ✔ There are hundreds of superstitions in the country.
✘ Balloons travel thousands of mile. ✔ Balloons travel thousands of miles.

Modifiers that are always plural. Some modifiers stay plural and are not made singular: customs officer, sports car, arms race, savings account, accounts department, sales agent, goods train, clothes shop, glasses case, careers adviser, examinations board, drugs business, kids park, Ashes series, fisheries sector, greetings card.

Fisheries sector is a singular subject: ✔ The fisheries sector has grown significantly.

This is one of the most repeated places where the exam checks the number of a noun. The idea is simple: when one is chosen from many, there must be many. So the noun after one of must be plural.

[[parse: S=This | V=is | C=one of the best books | X=that I have read]]

✔ This is one of the best books that I have read.
✘ This is one of the best book that I have read.
✔ Pune is one of the major cities in Maharashtra.
✘ Pune is one of the major city in Maharashtra.
✔ One of the biggest enterprises in India is declaring a lockout.
✘ One of the biggest enterprise in India is declaring a lockout.
✔ She is one of the best singers in the city.
✘ She is one of the best singer in the city.

The same is true for words that name a part or a number of many: most of the, none of the, some of the, a large number of, a few of the, two of my.

✔ Most of the freshwater lakes in India are in the Himalayan region.
✘ Most of the freshwater lake in India are in the Himalayan region.
✔ None of the witnesses could identify the suspect.
✔ A large number of students have participated in this music video.
✔ In the park I happened to meet two of my father's friends.

[[say:radhika| After one of the books should the verb be plural, because books is plural?]]

[[say:sir| No. Books is only the group we pick from. The subject is one, so the verb is singular: One of the books is missing. Check the noun for number, and check the verb against one.]]

With a superlative. After one of the, the adjective is a superlative, because we pick from all: one of the most difficult things, one of the best singers. A comparative like more difficult is grammatical, but SSC keys the superlative.

✘ A simple life is one of the more difficult thing to achieve.
✔ A simple life is one of the most difficult things to achieve.

Another way to say the same thing. A friend of mine is the same as one of my friends; a student of Ram's is one of Ram's students. This structure appears again in the possessive unit.

A related pattern, "many a". Many takes a plural noun and a plural verb (Many old poets have kept their romances). Many a takes a singular noun and a singular verb (Many an hour has been wasted). Do not mix the two.

> Look for these cues: one of the, most of the, none of the, a large number of, two of my. The cue tells you to check whether the noun after it is plural.

This unit collects the parts of the noun that the exam asks less often. Gender has not been a regular question for a long time (it was asked often around 2012-13), but nothing is irrelevant in this exam, so read it once properly.

1. Gender. There are four kinds.

Cousin is common gender, so my cousin sister is a repeat. We just say my cousin, and the pronoun shows the gender.

Showing the gender of a common-gender noun.

• Humans: put man / woman or male / female before it: woman doctor, man nurse, male partner, female athlete.
• Animals: put male / female before it: male fox, male cat, female elephant.
• Things that belong to men or women: men's / gents' and women's / ladies': ladies' purse, women's watch, gents' shoes, gents' washroom.
• Qualities of a man or woman: masculine / feminine: feminine voice, masculine laugh, masculine body.

Masculine to feminine.

Modern English prefers gender-neutral words:

2. The five cases of a noun. A noun does not change its form for most cases. What changes is its job in the sentence.

• Subjective case: the noun is the subject. Radhika sings.
• Objective case: the noun is the object. I know Radhika.
• Appositive case (noun in apposition): two nouns for the same person or thing in a row; the later one is in apposition and is set off with commas. ✔ Radhika, my friend, is a doctor.
• Vocative case: a person is called by name. The name is set off with a comma at the start or the end. ✔ Shubham, come here. = Come here, Shubham.
• Possessive case: shows relation or ownership. It gets two full units after this one.

Without the comma, Shubham come here becomes Shubham comes here, and now Shubham is the subject, so the verb changes. In direct speech turned into indirect speech, the vocative noun becomes the object of the reporting verb.

Since a noun looks the same as subject or object, the exam raises its questions on the possessive case.

3. Look-alike nouns. Confusing pairs are asked in the vocabulary section.

The possessive case shows relation, possession or ownership between a noun and the noun right after it. The first noun, the owner, goes into the possessive case with an apostrophe ('): Ram's house (= the house of Ram), Mohan's wife (= the wife of Mohan). Radhika's beauty works the same way. The possessive is mainly the owner-giving form, as in whose book?.

How to form it.

1. A singular noun takes 's: a man's coat, a girl's dream, an artist's life, a child's play.
2. A plural noun that does not end in -s also takes 's: men's room, a women's college, children's toys, people's support.
3. A noun that ends in -s, or in an s sound (a hissing sound), takes only the apostrophe: *boys' hostel, girls' room, workers' demands, doctors' strike, for peace' sake, for justice' sake*.
4. With each other and one another, the apostrophe goes on the last word: each other's help, one another's feelings.

✔ The police officer's helmet lay on the table. (one officer)
✔ India's globally recognised success stories (not Indias)
✔ Today's music (not todays music)

An apostrophe is used only when the owner is followed by the thing owned. If no thing follows, there is no possession, and it is simply a plural.

✘ The Principal requested the teacher's to monitor the children. (use the teachers)
✘ The visitor's to the zoo are requested not to tease animals. (use visitors)

Where we use the apostrophe. The apostrophe is chiefly for living things. In these cases it is fully accepted:

1. People and animals. Ram's book, a bird's nest, dogs' kennels, the tiger's roar.

2. Places, countries, cities. Delhi's weather, India's future, the world's population, the village's oldest tree, the country's population, the universe's other objects.

3. Time. an hour's wait, a moment's delay, a year's work, a day's journey, a week's leave, two days' journey, ten days' leave, last week's strike, yesterday's work, next month's salary, tomorrow's meeting.

If a number comes before the time word, a hyphen gives the same meaning, and then the word is singular and has no apostrophe:

4. Measurement and space. a gram's weight, a ton's weight, one metre's length, two metres' length, one rupee's worth, two rupees' worth, a ship's length, a razor's edge, a needle's point. This is not personification; it is just measurement.

5. Personification. When a non-living thing is treated as a living one and given human feelings, the apostrophe is allowed: *Death's icy hands, Duty's call, the moon's calmness, the sun's anger, the earth's lap, Nature's beauty*.

6. Fixed phrases. at one's wit's end, at a stone's throw, at one's finger's end, the boat's crew, the ship's passenger, the train's arrival, the train's departure, for God's sake.

> The apostrophe is not used with ordinary non-living things (a table, a house, a wall). That topic comes in the next unit, along with the "of" form.

The apostrophe and of often mean the same thing. Rudra's room = the room of Rudra; Shubham's son = the son of Shubham; a saint's life = the life of a saint; the crowd's cheer = the cheer of the crowd; someone's purse = the purse of someone. Now the question is which one to choose.

1. Living things take 's; non-living things take "of". (Pocket concept: apostrophe for living, of for non-living.)

The exceptions studied in the last unit (places, time, measures, personification, fixed phrases) stay allowed.

2. Noun modifier, apostrophe and "of": the difference in one view.

Guest room is a room for guests; guest's car is a car of the guest. For a group of people we say children's hospital and women's college, not children hospital.

3. Two owners.

• Joint ownership: apostrophe only on the last name. Ram and Sita's children (the children of both), Ram and Sita's joint account, Ram and Shyam's house (one house for both).
• Separate ownership: apostrophe on both. Ram's and Shyam's houses (two different houses), Ram's and Shyam's wives (each one's own wife).
• ✘ Ram and Shyam's wife would mean one wife shared by the two, which is wrong.

4. Compound nouns. The apostrophe goes on the last word, while the plural -s stays on the main word: my brother-in-law's house, my brothers-in-law's house, the Commander-in-chief's orders, the Commanders-in-chief's orders.

5. Indefinite pronouns (everyone, someone, nobody, anybody ...) take ’s. If else follows, the apostrophe moves to else.

✔ Everyone's attention. ✔ Everyone else's attention. ✘ Everyone's else attention.
✔ Nobody's suggestion. ✔ Nobody else's attention. ✘ Nobody's else attention.

6. Double possession. Avoid two apostrophes one after another; use one apostrophe and one of.

7. "The + adjective" nouns. When the is placed before a positive-degree adjective (the poor, the brave, the blind, the rich), it becomes a noun for a class of people. Such a noun does not take an apostrophe; use of.

✘ The poor's life. ✔ The life of the poor.
✘ The brave's life. ✔ The life of the brave.
✘ The blind's honesty. ✔ The honesty of the blind.
✘ The richs hobbies. ✔ The hobbies of the rich.

8. A noun with a prepositional phrase. If a prepositional phrase describes the noun, we use of, not an apostrophe, because the apostrophe would make the phrase attach to the wrong noun.

✘ I saw the man's car with a gun. (that would mean a car with a gun)
✔ I saw the car of the man with a gun.
✘ I liked the boy's smile with brown hair.
✔ I liked the smile of the boy with brown hair.

9. Advanced points.

• A human reference can stand for a place. ✔ I am residing at my uncle's these days. (= my uncle's house) ✔ I will go to the doctor's tomorrow. (= the doctor's clinic)
• "A ... of" and "one of". A friend of mine = one of my friends. A student of Ram's = one of Ram's students. A brother of Rahul's = one of Rahul's brothers. A son of his = one of his sons. Demonstratives can replace a / an: ✔ I like this friend of Rahul's. ✔ Please lend me these files of yours. ✔ He will need those books of hers.
• Picture, painting, photo, video. After of, the noun can be in the objective or the possessive case, and the meaning changes.

So The picture of the king's is exactly like the king himself is wrong: the king is in the picture, so it is the picture of the king.

• A pair of is a structure of quantity, not possession: a pair of shoes, a pair of spectacles.