3 ms·
That's because "Tom's" is possessive in this case. The possessive form of "it" is "its" (no apostrophe). The way I remember it: if you can substitute "his" or
by jerhinesmith 12y ago
That's because "Tom's" is possessive in this case. The possessive form of "it" is "its" (no apostrophe). The way I remember it: if you can substitute "his" or "hers" for "its", then don't use an apostrophe.
- wuliwong 12y agoI like that, I'll use it. I still forget it's vs. its.
- baddox 12y agoThis is precisely why I think usage is changing and will continue to change. The current "rule" (which isn't really a rule, since there is no official governing body of the English language) is an unnecessary and arbitrary special case. The meaning can nearly always be easily understood from context.
- cgriswald 12y agoYou are completely mistaken. "Its" isn't violating the apostrophe rule at all. "Its" is a possessive pronoun just like hers, theirs, his, ours, mine.
- baddox 12y agoAll the other pronouns have different pronunciations for their possessive and contraction forms, and also vary in spelling more than a single apostrophe, so the written mistake is unlikely to occur for those.
- lotsofmangos 12y agoArguing that there are no rules in English on the basis that there isn't a governing body seems to misunderstand what rules are. Being largely dead, the Romans no longer defend classical latin, but that doesn't mean it has no rules. Rules can change over time and you do not need a governing body for rules to exist as rules are just as easily defined by consensus as by imposition. It is generally known that its and it's have different meanings. People may regularly confuse them and the confusion may eventually eliminate the rule, but that does not mean there is currently no rule. Or to put it another way, if English has no rules, have understand problem no will sentence you this to.