It's or Its?

Question

Hi,Which one from following is a short form of "It is"?It'sORItsAlso please explain when to use both of them?Regards,Scott

Ruslana · Accepted Answer

It is = it's.

"Its" is a possessive pronoun. You use it when you want to show that something belongs to somebody.

I - My book
He - His book
She - Her book
We - Our book
It - Its book

Scotttiger09 · Answer

Thanks Ruslana for your reply.

I understand that but then why s becomes 's in following examples?

Scott's book.

Ruslana's diary.

In above example also we are try show that book and diary belongs to Scott and Ruslana. Why this difference is there?

Regards,

Scott

Jeannie1 · Answer

"it is" if it has to be contracted then it is always "it's", the apostophe shows that something has been removed, ie the "i". A lot, if not all, contractions follow this method. eg. "do not" becomes "don't", "is not" becomes "isn't" and lots more. In formal writing I was taught you should NOT use contractions. It is only for speech or the recording of speech in a story etc.

Now, the possessive pronoun is "its". That is it, one word. Not a contraction. I don't know why it does not follow the convention to other nouns that become possessive by adding " 's" as in your examples, except maybe because these are nouns, and "its" is a pronoun.

Some nouns just have ... ' at the end. That is when it is cumbersome to use ... 's.

For example : the rooves of houses in this street are all green.

would become: the houses' rooves in this street are all green.

or example: The Jones family live here

might become: The Jones'es live here. (not 100% sure of this, the sound is correct, as in 2 syllables , Jones & es. (Jones is a family name that is used a lot, like Smith or Brown)

As you can see it can get tricky.

Hope this helps, I don't profess to be an expert, just had a lot of years of practice in English.

Scotttiger09 · Answer

Thanks to both of you.

Delmobile · Answer

You have to think of it as a pronoun that gets special treatment, and not as an ordinary noun with an apostrophe and S tacked on at the end. We don't say he's book or we's neighborhood, either.

Clearly, this is a difficult distinction to master, however, since many, many native speakers make the wrong choice. MANY native speakers. Every - single - day. I saw "it's" used incorrectly on my own city's official website just the other day. I was tempted to send somebody an email, but I just let it go

Every single time you write the word, before you write the apostrophe, stop and say "it is" to yourself. If that makes sense, go ahead with that apostrophe. Foolproof.

Letters · Answer

its

It's or Its?

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