2006-10-07 07:54:45 · 4 answers · asked by Anonymous in Society & Culture ➔ Languages
ITS refers to a relationship between a grammatically neutral thing and something else.
- Example: That's a beautiful necklace. ITS colors fascinate me.
IT'S is the contraction of IT and IS.
- Example Today IT'S Saturday.
ITS is the plural form of IT, but ITS' does not exist.
2006-10-07 08:04:16 · answer #1 · answered by Hi y´all ! 6 · 2⤊ 0⤋
Actually, " its' " is not normally a word. It's something of a corruption of the other two forms. One way I could see it used as a word is if "Its" were the name of a character in a book or play (which is unlikely, but possible), and the writer wanted to use a possessive form and preferred the S-apostrophe construction rather than "s's".
Here's another way it could be used, although it wouldn't be seen very often. On Stevie Wonder's album "Songs in the Key of Life" there's a song called "Have a Talk With God", which has the following lines: "But every problem has a solution/And if yours' you cannot find..." Note that SW places an apostrophe on "yours", where normally there wouldn't be one. He does this to make it clear that he's referring to finding the solution. Were the apostrophe not there, the word might be misparsed to refer to the problem. " Its' " could be used in a similar way.
" Its " is a possessive form of "it".
" It's " is a contraction of "it is" or "it has", but has been mistakenly used to mean "its" on the logic that many possessive forms use an apostrophe-S construction (John's, Dave's, Kira's, and so forth).
2006-10-07 14:58:57 · answer #2 · answered by ichliebekira 5 · 2⤊ 0⤋
It's like this:
"Its" means "belonging to it": The book doesn't have its cover, The front of the house is newly painted, but its back isn't...
"It's" may be a contraction of "it is" or of "it has":
'Is it raining now?'
'Oh, yes. It's (=it is) raining now and it's (=it has) been raining all week!'
Finally, "its'" is never used.
2006-10-07 18:04:04 · answer #3 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
its= belonging to it
it's = it is
its' --basically never, unless you're playing tag and there are two Its and you're talking about something belonging to them. (This is the its' corner) Odd, and I'd prefer to see Its' capitalized.
EDIT: Oh shot down, ichliebe... is right: it's can also be "it has".
2006-10-07 14:59:09 · answer #4 · answered by Goddess of Grammar 7 · 1⤊ 0⤋