Why can hydroxide be represented as an oxygen atom with 6 electrons around it and then a line connecting it to the hydrogen atom?
Oxygen has 6 valence electrons and Hydrogen has 1. When the interact they have 7 electrons overall so what I've described above doesn't make sense to me. Any help would be appreciated :)

Question

Why can hydroxide be represented as an oxygen atom with 6 electrons around it and then a line connecting it to the hydrogen atom? 
Oxygen has 6 valence electrons and Hydrogen has 1. When the interact they have 7 electrons overall so what I've described above doesn't make sense to me. Any help would be appreciated :)

anonymous · Answer

"Hydroxide" is the name of a molecular ion, not a neutral molecule.  It consists of an oxygen atom, a hydrogen -- and one extra electron, to give an overall charge of -1.

So you have 6 valence electrons from the oxygen, 1 from the hydrogen, plus the extra electron, for a total of 8 valence electrons, or four pairs.  That's what allows you to draw this structure:
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