Here goes:. Here is the explanation: Its is like hers, his, ours, theirs, and yours. These are all pronouns. Possessive pronouns do not have apostrophes.
That is because their spelling already indicates a possessive. For example, the possessive form of she is hers. The possessive form of we is ours. Because we change the spelling, there is no need to add an apostrophe to show possession. Its follows that pattern. Otherwise, the correct choice is its. Thank you. I consider myself to be very literate, and still I find that I over think this. Now I will remember.
Thank you for this! Thanks for this clarification! No wonder so many people have trouble with it. Thank you for posting that. Good, concise grammatical information is important to communication in both bussiness and science.
You saved me from what would have been an embarrassing blunder on a cover letter to a prospective employer, no less! God bless your heart! I thoroughly respect your position.
I am post-graduate educated and no stranger to academic monograph or incredibly boring peer-reviewed text in highest formal English. Secondly my argument is the inconsistency of breaking with the attribution quality of the apostrophe. I refuse to yield to ridiculous, contradictory, arbitrary English grammar rules contrived after the fact! PS- I know this particular comment must be driving you mad. I hope your insistence on following your own punctuation path does not get in the way of your success.
Thank you so much for this. Thank you for clarifying it! As it has had seven reprints already this shows how prevalent this mistake is. Hi, Karan. I cover many of the basic rules of grammar on this blog. Just type what you are looking for in the search box at top right. Or click on the category at right called Grammar and Usage to scroll through all my posts on grammar.
Its use, now:. Hi, Wendell. Thanks for your detailed comment. Despite your interesting examples, I never want to use the forms you covered. They are too confusing. Business writing is too filled with opportunities for miscommunication to pile contractions upon contractions and upon misused words. Most people do not know the reason why we use the possessive contraction the way we do.
In fact, from a 16th and 17th century point of view we can never use a feminine possessive contraction. Hello, Buddy. Thank you for commenting. Things that were correct in Early Modern English usage are not necessarily correct today. Thank you for your explanation. Hi, Mitch. It's is short for "it is"!
But its simply owns something — it's soooo possessive. Its is the possessive form of "it. It's with an apostrophe is always short for "it is" it's so fun or "it has" it's been nice knowing you. But, you might ask, don't apostrophes show possession, as in "teacher's pet"? Well, yes they do, but not necessarily with pronouns.
Its conveys that the rates belong to the hotel. The apostrophe never follows the s. See what we did there? Feedback Tired of Typos? Word of the Day. For those of us who live — and write — in the here and now, use it's only when you mean it is or it has. And drop that apostrophe everywhere else. Subscribe to America's largest dictionary and get thousands more definitions and advanced search—ad free!
Log in Sign Up. Words at Play When to Use It's vs. What to Know It's is a contraction and should be used where a sentence would normally read "it is. More Words At Play. Merriam-Webster's Words of the Week - Oct.
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