Punctuation Question; its and it's?

Question

When I'm writing in english, when should I use "it's", and when should I use "its"?

Answer 1

You use "it's" when it is short for "it is" or "it has".
e.g. It's the right thing to do. It's been a long time.
At other times, you use "its".
e.g. The dog hurt its paw.
.

Answer 2

There's been a lot of debate over the years about use of the apostrophe and it will probably continue for many years to come.

Personally I'm not sure where the apostrophe should go, except perhaps back into the drawer with all the other unwanted bits of paper and so forth.

At school in the 1940s I was taught to use the apostrophe sparingly.

Johns' shoe is lost [John's shoe is lost] which, if either?

Here in London we have got : -

St. James's Street which is in St James, as if you didn't know.

We've also got St. Martin in the Fields - which is often written as St Marin's in the Field.

We all know what you mean!

To be totally honest about it, one should never used abbreviations in a hand written or typed letter. Words and names should be spelt out in full.

Answer 3

it's
is an abreviation for "it is" such as "it's a nice day today"

its
is when you want to say when "it" possesses something, e.g. "The cup had a pattern on ITS handle." in that case "it" is the cup and it possesses the handle. This one is tricky because a lot of other possessive words DO have an apostrophie at the end before the "s" like: "This is kirstin's answer."

Answer 4

Just like anywhere else, the apostrophe denotes a dropped letter.

So "it's" means "it is, or has".

The possessive form of "it" never had an "es" ending, only an "s", in common with most pronouns, unlike nouns, which did have an "es". So "its" is the possessive of "it", because there's no dropped letter.

Answer 5

'Tis quite simple, if it belongs to something it is ITS, but if you are abbreviating IT IS then IT'S is correct.

The apostrophy is used instead of the letter(s). Like Do Not becomes Don't. Has not becomes Hasn't and Cannot becomes Can't.

Answer 6

Well it's is a contraction of 'It is' I'm always getting the two mixed up and sometimes it's not obvious...at least to me

Answer 7

You use it's when you are writing short form for it is such as.. It's hot in here.

You use its when showing ownership of something such as..Let's say I'm talking about a dog...
Its brown fur was full ticks.

Hope that helped.

Answer 8

Well said Jodie W. Spot on. It drives me nuts when I see an apostrophe at the end of a name such as 'Gardners' World' when it should be 'Gardner's World'.
The only two reasons for use of an apostrophe are
for omission of letters and to indicate possession. Therefore you should always use one when writing 'it's to mean 'it is' or as in 'the cat licked it's foot'. When writing a plural, the correct form is with no apostrophe at all i.e., 'dogs love their dinner'.

Answer 9

"it's" should be used when you are abbreviating the phrase "it is". So, for example, if you were to say "it is cold outside", you could replace that with "it's cold outside", much like you would abbreviate "there is a man outside" with "there's a man outside".

"Its" should be used when denoting ownership (despite the apostraphe being normally used for ownership, it isn't in this case). So, for example, you could replace "the mall's available parking isn't ample" with "its available parking isn't ample".

Answer 10

It's= a contraction for "it is"
its= possessive. (The whole is equal to the sum of its parts.)