[Linguosco: Delivering Crafted Excellence]
Grammar 101 – Part 3 (Month 3)
It’s vs Its 💬💬💬
Have you ever come across someone who mixes up “It’s” and “Its” wrongly? Have you have heard someone who uses these terms incorrectly that may lead to an unwanted miscommunication? Do you still find it difficult or confusing to differentiate these terms?
Every term in the English language has its own meaning and function, even the terms that are or sound almost identical. It may be fatal if you misuse a term, both in your conversations or written documents. 💬📄
When you’re in a hurry, you might write or say “it’s” when you really mean “its,” or the other way around. You need to be aware of this mistake and know when to use which.
So, what is the difference between “It’s” and “Its”?
No worries! As always, we got you covered! 😊👍
First things first, “it” is a third-person singular neuter pronoun, used (among other ways) to stand in for inanimate things or ideas.
📌 It’s
It’s is a contraction of the words “it is” or “it has”. Interestingly, we don’t really contract “it was” into it’s.
A contraction is a shortened form of a word or group of words with the omitted letters often replaced in written English by an apostrophe.
Let’s look at some examples:
“She misplaced her phone, but she thinks it’s in the car.”
Did we use yes it’s correctly? Yes, as we can tell if we write out “it’s” fully:
“She misplaced her phone, but she thinks it is in her car.”
“Your parents are coming into town tomorrow morning,” Jess said. “We need to clean the house, and it’s got to be done today.”
In this instance, “it’s” is contracted from “it has got”.
📌 Its
Its is the possessive form of it, used to indicate possession, ownership, belonging, etc.
English generally uses apostrophes to indicate possession, for example, Mary’s bike (the bike belonging to Mary) and the lions’ roars (the roars of the lions). But, confusingly, English does not use apostrophes when showing possession for personal pronouns: yours, ours, theirs, his, hers, and … its.
The reason we don’t use an apostrophe to show a possessive is long and complicated, but here are few fun facts:
1. Way back when in English, we used “his” for the possessive form of “it”.
2. The use of its for the possessive form of it takes off in the 1500s.
For example:
“The hotel raised its rates.” ✅
Let’s try and swap in “it is”:
“The hotel raised it is rates.” ❌
This sentence doesn’t make sense. “Its” conveys that the rates belong to the hotel.
Other correct examples:
“The car needed its brakes repaired.”
“The house, while old, really has its charms.”
We hope we were able to explain to you about the terms “It’s” and “Its” clearly. It takes a lot of practice and dedication to excel in English grammar. Never stop practicing! 👍💪✊
Stay tuned for more Grammar 101 by Linguosco to improve your English grammar! 👌
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