I hate that my phone turns "its" into "it's" seemingly every single time. I often forget (I don't post from my phone very often) and often only notice later and have to edit a post. It's maddening.
this post was submitted on 01 Jan 2025
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Its - "ownership"
It's - "being" (ie. IT IS)
There are plenty of grammar rules that are annoying to figure out. This isn't one of them.
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Him --> His (no apostrophe...drops the m)
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Her --> Hers (no apostrophe)
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It --> Its (no apostrophe)
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He is --> He's
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She is --> She's
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It is --> It's
You explained it extremely well!
Now go forth and train/fix autocorrect and artificial intelligence...
Ultimately, it’s what it’s.
I do, it's really not that hard. I was taught when I was 10 or so, never seemed hard.
Now do comma splice.
I, for one, am, a fan, of, Shatner commas.
Commas in English were never my strong suit. I never really learned the rules. So if you see me placing my commas wrong, rest assured that's exactly where they should be if I was writing in Czech.
Ya dumbass, it's = it is. Apostrophe means combo.
Apostrophe also means possession, so why the historical nitpicky difference?
Apostrophe is only ever possessive when used with a noun.
Example:
"There was a stick in the dog's mouth" <- correct, dog is a noun
The word "its" is not a noun, Instead it serves the same function of possessive pronouns like "his" or "hers" and like those words it is never in this usage written with an apostrophe:
"The dog had a stick in his mouth" <--correct
"The dog had a stick in its mouth" <-- correct
"The dog had a stick in it's mouth" <-- wrong
In short, the ONLY rule you need to remember is that if the word "its" is short for "it is" then it should have an apostrophe, otherwise it doesn't.
That's all. One single rule, zero exceptions.
Then why does it vs it's break all the other rules of the apostrophe?
Where's the exact exception?
While it may seem like "it" and "it's" are different forms of the same word, in reality they are completely different words
he / his
her / hers
It / its
The above are all different forms of the same words.
"it's" however is merely a shortening of "it is" and on that basis is a totally different word that (very misleadingly!) happens to sound exactly the same as "its"
EDIT:
Another way of looking at this :)
his & he's (shortening of "he is") are different words in the same way, but nobody makes the mistake of writing or saying "he's car" instead of "his car" - it's obviously wrong because the words sound different - 'hiz' and 'heez'
The same is exactly and identically true of "its" and "it's'" but those words sound the same, so the mistake comes easily.
Don't demand nitpicky references in triplicate from people who assumed you just wanted to know and didn't understand you were out to normalize failing.
Go find a teacher. It's that person's job to show you why. If you don't believe that person, then it's an oppositional disorder you'll need information on.
I never suggested I didn't believe anyone, I just wanted a refresher on what happens to be a rather simple and common typo/misspelling, that even autocorrect and artificial intelligence can and do frequently get wrong.
English is known to be an awkward language anyways, and these days teachers are more and more using artificial intelligence to help teach their students. After 30ish years of reading both correct and incorrect uses of its versus it's, I started to forget which way is correct.
But it also makes one wonder, when and where exactly did the awkward rules of the apostrophe, plus other awkward rules and spellings, even enter into the English language?
There are two very different things that take the form •'s:
-
as the clitic version of a verb, is, has, and sometimes was and does; 2) as the genitive/possessive case marker.
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can be attached at the end of all noun phrases, even when the noun phrases is a single pronoun, like it: it's=it is, it has (or it was and it does in some dialects).
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can be attached to all noun phrases except to personal pronouns. These inflect, they change their forms: I>my, mine; you>your, yours; he>his; she>her, hers; it>its; we>our, ours; they>their, theirs.
Historically, the genitive case marker •'s originated from inflectional morphology in the form of •es. Different classes of nouns would have different case markers but the •es version ended up prevailing over the others as english shed its case system. The apostrophe that turned •es into •'s seems to have come from imitating the french practice of using an apostrophe where a vowel wasn't pronounced anymore.
Others are telling you you're an idiot but you're not.
The noun-pronoun distinction for the possessive apostrophe is irrational. Unlike other European languages, English never had a formal institution to dictate orthography. This odd incoherence would never have lingered in French, let alone ultra-logical German.
Personally I think the possessive apostrophe looks semi-illiterate even when it's correct. It should be Harrys Bar like it would be in German.
I feel like that one isn't that hard to remember because "its" stands out as a common exception to the rule for possessive singular nouns.
"It's" is a contraction of "it is" while "its" is possessive.
"its" is comparable to "his" or "her", not to e.g. "Dave's".
I think you meant hers, with an S, but I get your point. Does that mean "it" is/was meant to function as a pronoun?
Rhetorical question for the pronoun nazis, if I don't know the sex/gender of a kitten, I'm gonna call it an it. If I don't know the sex/gender of a human, I'm probably still gonna call it an it.
See post above, his, hers, and its are linguistically compatible, meaning that him, her, and it must be equally compatible.
I meant her. Mike and his guitar; Sarah and her violin; The computer and its speakers.
The obvious issue with 'it' as a pronoun for a person (or in my opinion a mammal or other sentient animal) is that it's literally objectifying them: The main use of 'it' is for inanimate objects. Sometimes that's used for effect, for example calling a pedophile an it. But unless you really dislike a person of nonspecific gender, just call them a them.
Them was originally intended as plural though. When did people decide to jank up the defined language? They/them/those are meant as plural.
And I might have made a subtle mistake earlier. He/she/it are pronouns, him/her/it as well.
His/hers/its are possessive pronouns. Can we try to stick to some sort of standard in the language, with clarity and without offense?
Singular 'they' is centuries old. Apparently even older than singular 'you'. It's only recently that people tried to make it a rule that it should only be used as a plural, but really it's used in natural language as a singular all the time like I did. (Did you notice it in the middle of my previous comment, not just the end?)
You never used the word they, you used the word them multiple times though.
Care to compare and contrast the difference?
It's the same word in a different grammatical situation.
Over the years, I've become more and more unsure on that one. I usually have excellent spelling and grammar, but it was so long ago when I learned the difference between its and it's, that I've gradually assumed I've seen so many typos over the decades that I just couldn't remember for sure.
It’s a pet-peeve of mine and I haven’t forgotten
Please don't pet your peeves in public, Gary got arrested for that three years ago.
Mr Francis, my year 10 English teacher told me:
It’s “its”, not “it’s”, unless you mean “it is”, in which case it is “it’s”.
That was 40 years ago, and I’ve never forgotten it.
Autocorrect seems to mess it up more than it fixes it for me.
I know right? All the more reason I asked, like what is and isn't correct anymore?
I mean it's not a rules thing. Its and it's are straight up different words (possessive form of its and contracted form of it is respectively).
I do and it's not even my native language. Even words like there, their, were, where, than and then, i have no issues with. One thing that does confuse me is with names, because that is used differently than my european country.
I do. I proofread everything to make sure that swipe typing got it right, and I judge people who get it wrong.
It does bug me that the possessive form (fundamental to the language) rather than the informal contraction is the non-standard one, but I suppose it matches "his" and "hers".
Your Apostrophe looks like an Arbitrary Value.
LOL, at the end of the day, it's not really a big deal though. Hell, weren't there once strict rules on the semicolon ; ...?
Anyways, thanks everyone for the comments and the reminder, not like I'm gonna remember tomorrow.
Happy New Beer! 🍻
I think it's a big deal for me because English isn't my native language. I have something to prove in a way that native speakers don't.
I do. I proofread everything to make sure that swipe typing got it right, and I judge people who get it wrong.
I'm a serial offender. I'll correct it later if I see it and think someone might actually read it.
It's actually quite easy to rember which of the word is in its correct form, because I have autocorrect turned off. The bigger problem for me is msitpying words because I wnna rush and finish the comment since I hvae zero paitence
I do. But only because it is burned into my memory. When I was in college one of my professors got really angry at our entire class because nobody knew this grammar rule. So he explained it, and for some reason it stuck with me.
But to your other point, yes, autocorrect often gets it wrong. I've had to remove the unneeded apostrophe on the possessive 'it' so many times.
π is burned into my memory, up to 50 decimal places, since age 10. So is the alphabet backwards, since age 10 as well.
But when you see typos going on for 30 years regarding a simple apostrophe difference, you might start to forget which way is correct.
It's about as important to me as which country uses a dot or a comma to separate thousands...
$1,000 ... £1.000 ... ???
You forget about us space people! 1 000 $. Or 1 000 £.
AI is just next probable token.
With my crap health and back, it is nearly impossible for me to tell what state of mind I'm in due to severe ongoing sleep deprivation. I'm on here when I'm pretty much useless for anything else due to pain. You can almost predict 1:1 how bad I'm doing based on: its it's, they're their there, your you're. My coherency breaks are generally the long pauses it can take to collect a thought or interruptions by others.
At this point, I project myself in what I see from others. I'm probably the worst offender, but I assume everyone's mistakes have an understandable reason. Experience and hardship carries lots of empathy for others.
Autocorrect changing the form I'm trying to use to be the incorrect one is why I always turn autocorrect off. It's always saying that its way is the right way; and if I let it do anything, those would have been reversed.
Indeed, as useful as autocorrect can be, it can also be very annoying sometimes.
I loosely recall learning its versus it's back in gradeschool, but I'm 42 years old now, and have over the years basically almost quit giving a shit. Over the years, I've assumed there's a good chance that half the time I've ever read either version of the word, it's likely wrong.
In the long run, does it really matter? Hell, we're evolving back to hieroglyphics anyways, icons and emojis and shit. Even the digital user interfaces these days use hieroglyphics.
Want to access the menu? Three vertical dots in the corner...
Yes.
I don't, but I also don't have autocorrect on. I've just given up on trying to remember.
I remember. And disregard it unless context isn't enough for people to tell.