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Grammar question

American

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I guess this qualifies as "language history".....


Why do we write "its" instead of "it's"?
 
Why do we write "its" instead of "it's"?
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We write both.

its: the possessive pronoun form of "it", as in "Give the dog its food."

it's: a contraction for "it is" or "it has", as in "It's a nice day."

Generally, possessive pronouns such as "his", "hers", "ours", and "its" don't use apostrophes. Contractions such as "don't", "can't", "won't", and "it's" do use apostrophes.

[edited, thanks to Kensington Bailey's sharp eye]
 
Re: Re: Grammar question

Neutron Jack said:

Generally, possessive pronouns such as "his", "hers", "ours", and "its" don't use apostrophes.
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They should totally change that to "hi's", "her's", and "our's".

I might just do it anyway.
 
Re: Re: Grammar question

Neutron Jack said:
We write both.

it's: the possessive pronoun form of "it", as in "Give the dog its food."

its: a contraction for "it is" or "it has", as in "It's a nice day."

Generally, possessive pronouns such as "his", "hers", "ours", and "its" don't use apostrophes. Contractions such as "don't", "can't", "won't", and "it's" do use apostrophes.
Click to expand...

That's wierd - you used the word correctly in the example, but the terms you sought to define are reversed ...

Puzzle: what is the definition of ...

its'
 
Re: Re: Re: Grammar question

Kensington Bailey said:
That's wierd - you used the word correctly in the example, but the terms you sought to define are reversed ...
Click to expand...
D'oh!
 
Re: Re: Re: Grammar question

Kensington Bailey said:


Puzzle: what is the definition of ...

its'
Click to expand...

Captian Kirk once made some really hot robots self destruct by asking just that sort of question.
 
Re: Re: Re: Grammar question

Kensington Bailey said:
Puzzle: what is the definition of ...

its'
Click to expand...

Its' been a long time, been a long time,
Been a long lonely, lonely, lonely, lonely, lonely time.
 
American said:
I guess this qualifies as "language history".....


Why do we write "its" instead of "it's"?
Click to expand...

See Made in America by Bill Bryson. There was quite a conversy over this one. Thomas Jefferson argued that the posessive should be "it's" to be similar to the use of an apostrophy with the plural of a noun.
 
Re: Re: Re: Grammar question

Kensington Bailey said:
Puzzle: what is the definition of ...

its'
Click to expand...

My brother's name full name is Its Keogh

Its' brother is Harry.
 
I think "American"'s question is a bit different: namely, why is "its" the possessive and "it's" the contraction, when usually the possessive has an apostrophe (e.g., "John's house", "the dog's bone", etc.)

The reason is that the apostrophe has more than one use. Sometimes, it is used to indicate a possessive: "John's book". But sometimes, it is used as a replacement for a dropped letter: e.g., " runnin' ", " that's 'im! ", "shop 'n' shop" ( "stop and shop" ), etc.

In the case of "it's" (it is) "hasn't" (has not), etc., the apostrophe is used for a dropped letter, not as a possessive.
 
Re: Re: Grammar question

epepke said:
See Made in America by Bill Bryson. There was quite a conversy over this one. Thomas Jefferson argued that the posessive should be "it's" to be similar to the use of an apostrophy with the plural of a noun.
Click to expand...

Correction: This should be "apostrophe with the possessive of a noun."
 
The business about possessive pronouns is one of those language things that probably has a reason so arcane that ordinary folks need not spend a lot of time looking for it. American English is full of little traditions and rules adapted from other languages or made up by Ben Franklin or Bergan Evans.

Your question would be welcomed at the grammarlady web site and in fact has been, but alas, that site seems to have disappeared.
 
Re: Re: Re: Re: Grammar question

HarryKeogh said:
My brother's name full name is Its Keogh

Its' brother is Harry.
Click to expand...
The trend these days is away from this sort of construction. We don't put an extra s after the apostrophe in plurals, because saying things like "cheeses's" (admittedly an extreme example, ending in a sibilant in the singular) just sounds clumsy. The obvious exception is irregular plurals, so "belonging to the children" is rendered correctly "the children's".

Generally these days, though, ordinary nouns, including proper nouns, which end in 's' should be given their full apostrophe-s ending. So: "Jones's dog" &c.

Admittedly, this is largely a matter of fashion and house style, so older writers, and those taught by the more dogmatic English teachers, may still use the older style.

Cheers,
Rat.
 
I recommend spelling it the way you pronounce it.

If, about the Joneses, you say "the house belongs to the joneziz", then use Jones's. If you say, "the house belongs to the jones" then just tack an apostrophe on to the end of Jones.


It easily clears up the editorial debate point about how to apostrophe-ize "the mick donaldziziz board of directors".
 
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