Following on from the previous two articles, I now want to look at another common difficulty with the apostrophe – that is, the difference between “it’s” and “its” and when each of these should be used.
The difficulty is that “its” is the exception to the usual rule as, although it means “belonging to it”, no apostrophe is used. This is in order to distinguish it from “it’s”, meaning “it is”.
It’s on it’s way! – WRONG
It’s on its way! – RIGHT
“It’s” always means “it is”. So you should never put an apostrophe in “its” when it means “belonging to it” or “of it” – as in “its benefits”, “its cost” or “its downside”.
The trick is to read what you’ve written out loud – but without abbreviations. You wouldn’t say “it is on it is way”, so then you also wouldn’t write “it’s on it’s way” – would you?
One final word about apostrophes. I wrote in last week’s article about where the apostrophe comes when more than one person or thing is doing the belonging – as in “my sons’ computers” or “the members’ exclusive offers”. The only time the apostrophe doesn’t come after the “s” in such cases is where the plural of the word doesn’t end in “s”.
For example, with words like “children” and “people” (the plurals of “child” and “person”), the apostrophe comes before the “s”. Examples would be “the children’s toys” or “the people’s rights”.
I do hope you are not more confused now than you were when we started on all this apostrophe business!
Virginia Rounding is a published writer whose website of
Internet Resources for Writers looks at additional ways for
writers to earn money, in the hope of making it possible
for them to keep writing without having to resort either to
full-time employment or to destitution. For a selection of
free resources or to subscribe to her new ezine Poetry
Competition Updates, go to
http://www.virginiarounding.com/links.html
