It's Versus Its: One Simple Rule

Today I address a topic surprises me at least once a day when I’m on-line: people cannot keep straight the difference between its and it’s. Even sites for writers include posts where someone explains to a hapless newbie, “Its the difference between getting published and not” or, “Each paragraph should have it’s own focus.”

The teachers who pounded the possessive-apostrophe rule into most folks’ heads did them no good. That rule only holds true if you are using a noun. When using a pronoun (he, she, it, you, them, they, etc.) you use no apostrophe to indicate possession. If you did, you’d write hi’s, her’s, their’s, and so on.

That’s my tip for today: pronouns don’t have apostrophes. His, hers, theirs, whose, your, its – all of these indicate possession without that pesky little hanging tail. This simple rule

The apostrophe in “it’s” indicates that the writer has left out a letter or two. It’s a contraction of “it has”, “it was”, or “it is”. If you see a pronoun with an apostrophe, it indicates a contraction – “It’s my car” means “It is my car.”

As I have previously advised, eliminate doubt by removing contractions until the rule becomes second nature. Any apostrophes you have left either mark an error or show that a noun possesses something.

Your Versus You're: An Epic Battle

One of the most-covered grammar topics out there is “you” versus “you're” yet it still ranks as the most frequent error I see. (“Its” and “It's” run a close second in this race.)

As a hypothetical example, take a blog named “Your Fun”. Would you assume that the author intends to tell you about fun things to do or to find on the Internet? In actuality, the blog contains posts “to” other bloggers telling them that a post on their blog is fun. Clearly, at least to me, the writer means “You're Fun”, and intends to compliment other people.

The difference between the two words is easy to remember, if you take your time when you are writing. Stop for a moment and ask yourself if you are saying something is “yours”, indicating ownership and thus no apostrophe.

If you mean that someone sounds or acts like something (“You're silly!”) then you are telling them, “You are...” The apostrophe is simply a way to knock out the space and the letter “a” and create a contraction. In writing, the difference in size barely registers and does not factor into your composition beyond the “should I use contractions?” debate that I covered elsewhere.

Concern yourself with eliminating the contraction and you will solve your own problem. If you mean “you are” then write it. If you don't, then you either have the wrong word or you meant “that belongs to you”. In that case, use “your”. When you talk to your brother about his shoes, it's "your". When you talk about his actions, like his failure to take a shower, it's "you are". "You're stinky, and so are your shoes."

If you still find this difficult, consider that pronouns (you, he, she, they, it) don't have apostrophes in their possessive forms (yours, his, hers, theirs, its). Nouns do. A little attention to your meaning saves a lot of confusion in your writing. You'll also save people who care about language a large amount of frustration.

Inklings and Contractions

I have been checking out Walter Burek's Inklings for about a week now. He almost invariably has something intelligent and helpful to say, and has a link or two to share as well. I can't help but think he's got a book of good writing quotes at home, becuase he comes up with some excellent and relevant ones for his weekly post. Then there was this post on editing your own writing that laid down some specific and realistic rules for evaluating your work.

This brings me back to somthing I was posting on a disucssion board the other day. The question was about using contractions (of which I'm a proponent) but my response was about tone. To me, purposely removing them where you naturally wrote them can make your writing stilted instead of authoritative. Also, spelling out the "not" inherent in many contractions tends to emphasize it, since it is so often neglected. Unless you're writing a technical manual or other instructions (where you want to ensure that people do not do something when they ought not to do it) you can feel free to sprinkle the contractions about naturally. That's it for today!