Putting It’s in Its place

I’ll admit that one of my pet peeves is the constant and ubiquitous misuse of the contraction “it’s” in place of the possessive form of it: “its” (without the apostrophe.) It’s just so odd to me to read some very scholarly papers or see ads running on a national level that contain this grammatical error. So, at the risk of sounding like everybody’s high school English teacher, please allow me to state the rule as simply as it was explained to me:

It’s = the contraction for “it is,”  or “it has,” always and forever.

Its = the possessive form of it, something belongs to “it,” always and forever.

My own high school English teacher provided a simple way to recognize the problem. Whenever you see “it’s” in a document simply read it as “it is” or “it has.”  If that works then you’ve got it right. If not, simply lose the apostrophe and consider yourself a tad wiser than apparently a lot of other people. Ok, I’ll get off the podium now.

Peeve #2 is “your” and “you’re” but that’s another blog post.