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There’s a trivial way for native English speakers to learn this rule: replace ‘it’ with ‘his’, appropriately, adjust comma to suit. > Amazon has ceded control

• floren 7y ago
  > There’s a trivial way for native English speakers to learn this rule: replace ‘it’ with ‘his’, appropriately, adjust comma to suit. I prefer the handy jingle, "If it's supposed to be possessive, it's just i-t-s, if it's supposed to be a contraction it's i-t-apostrophe-s. Scalawag."
  • rblatz 7y ago
    How did you type that message with boxing gloves on?
• mkl 7y ago
  It's an apostrophe, not a comma, and unfortunately that won't work in the case where it should be "it's", like at the start of this sentence, but yes. "It's" only ever means "it is" or "it has". </pedantic>
  • usrusr 7y ago
    What if he actually is an apostrophe? Disregarding the semantic absurdity (and the e/i mismatch), the rule works fine: "his an apostrophe" should look a lot more wrong to anyone with enough understanding of English that its/it's mistakes make a difference than "he's an apostrophe". "He's" also only ever means "he is" or "he has", just like "it's". That's the entire point of this little memory aid.
• jtbayly 7y ago
  When does "hi's" ever look correct though?
  • 1986 7y ago
    That's the point!
  • kevin_thibedeau 7y ago
    His arrival elicited a number of hi's.