[Deleted]
its or it's?
Just a simple question: When I am reading an English book written by a US writer and mainly published in the US also the word is being written "it's" but when I write something myself in Microsoft Word with the language "English (USA)" and I just write it like that, it always marks the word as a mistake and asks me to write "its" instead "it's".
Is this a mistake of Microsoft Word or am I doing something wrong? Thanks for the helpout in advance!
Oct 7, 2015 6:30 AM
Answers · 10
4
Leaving aside Microsoft's quirks for a moment, if you master when to use "it's", and when to use "its" you will be miles ahead of many native speakers who appear to be clueless about the use of apostrophes in general and this usage in particular. Good luck!
October 7, 2015
2
Both "its" and "it's" exist in English, but they mean different things. "Its" means "of it" or "belonging to it"; "it's" is a contraction of "it is" or "it has". In formal writing it's best to expand "it's" to its full form, which is probably why Microsoft "corrects" it.
October 7, 2015
@Jmat: Thank you very much for this interesting information! The English book I'm reading right now is gladly not that old, it's from 1999. :)
October 7, 2015
Keep in mind that if you read older texts, you might see "it's" where you'd expect "its". "It's" was originally used as both an abbreviation of "it is/has" and as the possessive pronoun of "it", but "its" came to replace it: "At first commonly written it's, a spelling retained by some to the beginning of the 19c." - Etymonline, which in turn took this quote from the Oxford dictionary.
October 7, 2015
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