So I was reading "A Game of Thrones" by George Martin and at one point one of the characters asked another: "Do you know your letters?" meaning "Can you read/write?". So I was wondering why does she said "your letters" not "the letters". I thought that the word "my" describes something that you own like "my car" or "my hand". And nobody owns letters, they just exist.
2 Answers
To know one's letters sounds a bit antiquated/dialectal to me, but the basic form is perfectly natural in usages such as...
"I know my seven times table"
"The commentator certainly knows his football"
"He's learned his lesson"
I think the idiomatic use of a possessive in such forms reflects either or both of...
1: The subject matter was assigned to the person to be learned (whether he actually learned it or not)
2: (If they learned it) the knowledge was acquired by the person, so they now "own" it
answered Jun 6, 2014 at 12:23
The same expression is used for different kind of knowledge, for example:
- Do you know your history?
- Do you know your Byron?
This refers to the persons knowledge in the area, not the knowledge limited to the persons involvment in the area. To know ones history is to have knowledge about history in general, not to know what happened to oneself.
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I must say "Do you know your history?" isn't a particularly good example here. You've provided your own "definition", because that was what you had in mind when you wrote it. But it's entirely a matter of context whether those exact words refer to history in general, or your personal history. Commented Jun 6, 2014 at 15:03
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@FumbleFingers: Naturally the example could take a different meaning in a specific context, but that goes for any example, including yours.– GuffaCommented Jun 6, 2014 at 16:46
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I can't easily think of even a highly-contrived context where the first two of my examples could "literally" mean my seven times table, or his football. I did um and ah a bit before adding learned his lesson, but the "figurative possession" sense there is so idiomatically standard I went with it anyway. Commented Jun 6, 2014 at 17:02
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@FumbleFingers: It isnt a matter of how contrived the context would, be but that you need to supply a specific context for the example to have a different meaning.– GuffaCommented Jun 6, 2014 at 20:45
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But I did supply links to numerous written instances of each usage I listed - not that I examined every link, obviously, but it wouldn't be easy to find any there which aren't the "idiomatic, non-possessive" sense. Whereas the first couple of hits for Do you know your history are quite obviously referring to the personal history of the person being addressed (or that of his own particular social group). Commented Jun 6, 2014 at 21:07