Wanderings Magazine - Tutorial: "Its" vs. "it's": It's A Little Confusing

"Its" vs. "it's": It's A Little Confusing

Mike Wever

There is an obscure little rule that relates to the posessive form of the pronoun "it". If you want to refer to something that belongs to "it" your natural tendency might be to use an apostrophe s, just as you would for a car, a house, or anything else that "it" might refer to. That tendency would be incorrect, however. There is actually a word for the possesive form of "it" just as there is for "him" or "her". "Him" becomes "his", "her" becomes "hers", and "it" becomes "its".

So, if you were to take the following sentence:

The car's finish was an incredible shade of red.

and replace "the car" with "it" you would get:

Its finish was an incredible shade of red.

Removing the apostrophe here is counterintuitive for many people, but it is the correct form of the word to use.

Does that mean there is no such word as "it's"? Not at all. You should still use an apostrophe if you are making a contraction out of the two words "it is". So the following example is correct:

What color is the car? It's an incredible shade of red.

The key to correctly choosing between "its" and "it's" is to think about whether you are referring to something that belongs to "it". If so, you should use the possesive form, "its"; otherwise, you are contracting the two words "it is" and you should use the apostrophe form "it's".