✨Creating an account only takes 20 seconds, and doesn’t require any personal info.
If you’ve got one already, please log in.🤝
Its v. it’s
From Teflpedia
Its and it’s are often confused in writing.[1] In speech they sound the same (/ɪts/), so the difference doesn’t matter.
- Its is the third person neuter possessive determiner pronoun, used as a dependent possessive determiner, though not generally as an independent possessive determiner.
- it’s is a contraction of it is, or sometimes (particularly in speech and informal writing) it has.
Interestingly, the possessive morpheme genitive ’s, seems to affect both the change it → its and Bob → Bob’s. Historically, before spelling standardisation, it’s was also accepted as a pronoun.
Compare also the gender-neutral, indefinite pronoun, one, the possessive determiners of which are one’s, not *ones. A similar problem also occurs between whose and who’s.
