4 ms·

I personally never had problems with the rules. They are quite clear to me, apart from that one common pitfall: its vs. it's, which is probably the most common

I personally never had problems with the rules. They are quite clear to me, apart from that one common pitfall: its vs. it's, which is probably the most common pitfall people never memorize. I still don't want to put blame on the English language, but rather on lack of attention from the student - there is just no excuse for ignorance.

RyanMcGreal 17y ago
The way I found to keep its and it's straight is to remember that its is one of the possessive pronouns, none of which take an apostrophe: my, your, his, her, its, their.
- deleted 17y ago
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- stcredzero 17y ago
  For a lot of folks, that rule breaks down with you're.
  - eru 17y ago
    Sounds perfectly in line to me. Am I missing something?
  - loup-vaillant 17y ago
    "you're" ("it's") is the contraction of "you are" ("it is"). "your" ("its") is the possessive. The contraction <=> apostrophe rule doesn't break for me in this case. How could it break for anyone?
    - stcredzero 16y ago
      Yes, but they go ahead and use the wrong homonym anyways. That's what I meant -- a criticism of too many erroneous posters. (But for some reason everyone took it as a criticism of the rule and voted me down.)
  - RyanMcGreal 17y ago
    Your doing it wrong.
    - loup-vaillant 17y ago
      Your doing it wrong. Did you actually mean a noun phrase? :-)
      - RyanMcGreal 17y ago
        I was being facetiou's.
- teamonkey 17y ago
  When I have a brainfart and can't remember which one to use I always remember it the other way around: it's always a contraction. If you can write "it is" or "it has" in its place then use the apostrophe, otherwise don't.
  - gojomo 17y ago
    I tend to remember this contextual demonstration: "It's" only "it is". Even though, it ignores "it has", and would more precisely be: "It's" is only "it is". The rule that possessive pronouns never have apostrophes is handy, too.
CWuestefeld 17y ago
I never got what the confusion is over the possessive form of "it". I mean, nobody ever writes "hi's" or "her's"; why would they want to do so with "it"? One rule he alluded to but didn't make explicit is over the possessive form of words already ending in "s". We know that one does not add an "s" if the word is a plural form that already ends with that letter. What he doesn't directly address is singular words that end in "s". For example, my first name is "Chris". I've seen many people refer to "Chris' stuff", but I believe this is incorrect. Because my terminal "s" was not the result of pluralization, I'm still entitled to a possessive "s": "Chris's stuff".
- hugh3 17y ago
  I never got what the confusion is over the possessive form of "it". I mean, nobody ever writes "hi's" or "her's"; why would they want to do so with "it"? Because "it" is the only personal that has a possessive form consisting of the personal pronoun followed by an "s". The briefcase belonging to him is his briefcase, not hims briefcase. The purse belonging to her is her purse, not hers purse. The mama belonging to you is your mama, not yous mama. The nasty case of chlamydia belonging to me is my nasty case of chlamydia, not mes nasty case of chlamydia. Similarly it's "our" not "uss" and "their" not "thems". I think that's covered all of 'em. So "its" is unique as being the only one where you could reasonably make this mistake.
- hackermom 17y ago
  That's actually the correct way - at least so say all of the old (and most new) books on English grammar. If the word ends with a written S, you don't add another one after the "possessive apostrophe". Some teachers go the extra mile by saying that this rule also goes if the word ends with any consonant pronounced with an S sound; "Alix' room"; but not if it ends with a pronounced S sound followed by a silent vowel; "Belize's beaches". I personally follow this rule.
  - hugh3 17y ago
    That's the rule (not sure about the X thing, that just looks wrong). Where I really get confused is the correct pronunciation for that. If it was "Chris' stuff" I'd probably put in an extra "es" sylalble at the end of "Chris" just to make it clear. On the other hand if you're talking about, say, "Jesus' stuff" then saying "Jesuses" sounds silly.

RyanMcGreal 17y ago

The way I found to keep its and it's straight is to remember that its is one of the possessive pronouns, none of which take an apostrophe: my, your, his, her, its, their.

deleted 17y ago
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stcredzero 17y ago
For a lot of folks, that rule breaks down with you're.
- eru 17y ago
  Sounds perfectly in line to me. Am I missing something?
- loup-vaillant 17y ago
  "you're" ("it's") is the contraction of "you are" ("it is"). "your" ("its") is the possessive. The contraction <=> apostrophe rule doesn't break for me in this case. How could it break for anyone?
  - stcredzero 16y ago
    Yes, but they go ahead and use the wrong homonym anyways. That's what I meant -- a criticism of too many erroneous posters. (But for some reason everyone took it as a criticism of the rule and voted me down.)
- RyanMcGreal 17y ago
  Your doing it wrong.
  - loup-vaillant 17y ago
    Your doing it wrong. Did you actually mean a noun phrase? :-)
    - RyanMcGreal 17y ago
      I was being facetiou's.
teamonkey 17y ago
When I have a brainfart and can't remember which one to use I always remember it the other way around: it's always a contraction. If you can write "it is" or "it has" in its place then use the apostrophe, otherwise don't.
- gojomo 17y ago
  I tend to remember this contextual demonstration: "It's" only "it is". Even though, it ignores "it has", and would more precisely be: "It's" is only "it is". The rule that possessive pronouns never have apostrophes is handy, too.

CWuestefeld 17y ago

I never got what the confusion is over the possessive form of "it". I mean, nobody ever writes "hi's" or "her's"; why would they want to do so with "it"? One rule he alluded to but didn't make explicit is over the possessive form of words already ending in "s". We know that one does not add an "s" if the word is a plural form that already ends with that letter. What he doesn't directly address is singular words that end in "s". For example, my first name is "Chris". I've seen many people refer to "Chris' stuff", but I believe this is incorrect. Because my terminal "s" was not the result of pluralization, I'm still entitled to a possessive "s": "Chris's stuff".

hugh3 17y ago
I never got what the confusion is over the possessive form of "it". I mean, nobody ever writes "hi's" or "her's"; why would they want to do so with "it"? Because "it" is the only personal that has a possessive form consisting of the personal pronoun followed by an "s". The briefcase belonging to him is his briefcase, not hims briefcase. The purse belonging to her is her purse, not hers purse. The mama belonging to you is your mama, not yous mama. The nasty case of chlamydia belonging to me is my nasty case of chlamydia, not mes nasty case of chlamydia. Similarly it's "our" not "uss" and "their" not "thems". I think that's covered all of 'em. So "its" is unique as being the only one where you could reasonably make this mistake.
hackermom 17y ago
That's actually the correct way - at least so say all of the old (and most new) books on English grammar. If the word ends with a written S, you don't add another one after the "possessive apostrophe". Some teachers go the extra mile by saying that this rule also goes if the word ends with any consonant pronounced with an S sound; "Alix' room"; but not if it ends with a pronounced S sound followed by a silent vowel; "Belize's beaches". I personally follow this rule.
- hugh3 17y ago
  That's the rule (not sure about the X thing, that just looks wrong). Where I really get confused is the correct pronunciation for that. If it was "Chris' stuff" I'd probably put in an extra "es" sylalble at the end of "Chris" just to make it clear. On the other hand if you're talking about, say, "Jesus' stuff" then saying "Jesuses" sounds silly.