Grammar:It's vs Its
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Grammar:It's vs Its
When do we have to use "it's" and "its"? The answer is simple:
It's = it is:
It's easy to speak English. = It is easy to speak English.
"Its" is the possessive form of "it":
It hasn't lost its charm.
London hasn't lost its charm.
So, are there absolutely no exceptions to this rule? How come the creators of this intensely confusing language decided to drop the apostrophe for the possessive form?
Actually, that's not the only possessive form without an apostrophe: his, her, my, our also belong in this series of possessive determiners, so it would stick out as peculiar if its had an apostrophe when all the others do not:
his, her, my, our, your, their, its
This leads to an odd question: Who owns the food, we, you, they or the dog?
It's our food.
It's your food.
It's their food.
Well then, is it possible that you could write: "It's its food"? Yes, you could, if you were talking about a strange dog of unknown sex. (We usually call our own or friends' pets 'he' and 'she'.)
Remember that people also use "it's" as a contraction of "it has" -- depending on the context, of course. There is nothing overly exceptional about that, but we believe that careful writers do not use it. It occurs often in spoken English.
It's = it is:
It's easy to speak English. = It is easy to speak English.
"Its" is the possessive form of "it":
It hasn't lost its charm.
London hasn't lost its charm.
So, are there absolutely no exceptions to this rule? How come the creators of this intensely confusing language decided to drop the apostrophe for the possessive form?
Actually, that's not the only possessive form without an apostrophe: his, her, my, our also belong in this series of possessive determiners, so it would stick out as peculiar if its had an apostrophe when all the others do not:
his, her, my, our, your, their, its
This leads to an odd question: Who owns the food, we, you, they or the dog?
It's our food.
It's your food.
It's their food.
Well then, is it possible that you could write: "It's its food"? Yes, you could, if you were talking about a strange dog of unknown sex. (We usually call our own or friends' pets 'he' and 'she'.)
Remember that people also use "it's" as a contraction of "it has" -- depending on the context, of course. There is nothing overly exceptional about that, but we believe that careful writers do not use it. It occurs often in spoken English.
missenglish1988- .
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عدد المساهمات : 4
تاريخ الميلاد : 28/02/1988
تاريخ التسجيل : 05/04/2011
العمر : 36
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