# Once and for all: the possessive is "its" AND "it's" = "it is" **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [August 3, 2012, 7:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/once-and-for-all-the-possessive-is-its-and-its-it-is/630337 "2012-08-03T19:56:04Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 14\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Enkel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/df705f/32.png) [@Enkel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Enkel)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2012, 3:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/once-and-for-all-the-possessive-is-its-and-its-it-is/630337/21 "2012-08-04T03:22:02Z")
> [@Superhal](#): > > My pet peeve is people who correct grammar on bulletin boards. Those of us who get paid to do it professionally would never do it for free, and we’re also qualified to do it. It seems to me that the likelihood of bbs grammar correction is inversely proportional to that person’s qualifications to do so. This. Every time I read someone having a grammar melt down over BBS postings, I thank God that I don’t suffer the same affliction. I struggle with grammar in my professional writing. I can’t begin to imagine the pain my casual BBS posts have inflicted on the hyper-grammar-sensitive over the years. I can only hope that we don’t share a room in the after-life. ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2012, 3:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/once-and-for-all-the-possessive-is-its-and-its-it-is/630337/22 "2012-08-04T03:24:47Z")
> [@Superhal](#): > > Which one? I never correct someone’s grammar in their BBS posts. > > Are false accusations reportable? Yeah, you should report that :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2012, 4:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/once-and-for-all-the-possessive-is-its-and-its-it-is/630337/23 "2012-08-04T04:17:44Z")
> [@Hari\_Seldon](#): > > It’s been my experience that most people don’t know that there is another place you use “it’s”. “It has”? ---
**Author:** ![Inner\_Stickler](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/inner_stickler/32/318_2.png) [@Inner\_Stickler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Inner_Stickler)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2012, 5:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/once-and-for-all-the-possessive-is-its-and-its-it-is/630337/24 "2012-08-04T05:28:03Z")
> [@drewtwo99](#): > > You know what’s more annoying than it’s vs its? Comma splices and unnecessary commas, of which the OP was guilty of so many that I stopped counting. The OP’s comma-ing was pretty much correct if a tad dickensian. ---
**Author:** ![Dickerman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/8baadc/32.png) [@Dickerman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dickerman)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2012, 7:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/once-and-for-all-the-possessive-is-its-and-its-it-is/630337/25 "2012-08-04T07:43:12Z")
I just wanted to add that I’ve known the correct usage for quite some time, yet still find myself making this common error. So for me at least (and I suspect many others) it’s not a matter of ignorance as several folks above implied, it’s just a simple typo. Just the other day I noticed it in a small article I wrote twelve years ago. I don’t know how I missed it then as I typically spend a good amount of time proofreading. ---
**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2012, 7:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/once-and-for-all-the-possessive-is-its-and-its-it-is/630337/26 "2012-08-04T07:55:30Z")
I’m not (or at least _wasn’t_) a complete illiterate – I won school spelling bees 50-odd years ago. But lately I seem to suffer some brain damage and occasionally write “there” when I intend “their” or “they’re.” Proof that that is caused by misfiring neurons rather than ordinary ignorance is that sometimes I substitute a homophone that makes no sense. One example I recall is “value” instead of “vowel” but there are many others. I almost always click Preview these days; otherwise I’m afraid most my posts would be unintelligible. ---
**Author:** ![Molotok](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ecd19e/32.png) [@Molotok](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Molotok)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2012, 8:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/once-and-for-all-the-possessive-is-its-and-its-it-is/630337/27 "2012-08-04T08:13:28Z")
Similar thing I was pondering recently: are ‘‘it isn’t’’ and ‘‘it’s not’’ grammatically similar, and if not, what differents contexts are they used in? ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2012, 12:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/once-and-for-all-the-possessive-is-its-and-its-it-is/630337/28 "2012-08-04T12:34:43Z")
> [@boomerwang](#): > > Similar thing I was pondering recently: are ‘‘it isn’t’’ and ‘‘it’s not’’ grammatically similar, and if not, what differents contexts are they used in? There too different weighs of righting and saying “It is not”. ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2012, 2:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/once-and-for-all-the-possessive-is-its-and-its-it-is/630337/29 "2012-08-04T14:00:41Z")
> [@Hari\_Seldon](#): > > It’s been my experience that most people don’t know that there is another place you use “it’s”. > [@pulykamell](#): > > “It has”? :smack: And only now, in the light of morning, do I see what you did there. ---
**Author:** ![ThelmaLou](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thelmalou/32/390_2.png) [@ThelmaLou](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ThelmaLou)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2012, 2:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/once-and-for-all-the-possessive-is-its-and-its-it-is/630337/30 "2012-08-04T14:24:23Z")
I love the way grammar talk stirs people’s passions. Is it because we were first exposed to grammar when our adolescent hormones were raging? ---
**Author:** ![guizot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guizot/32/3636_2.png) [@guizot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/guizot)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2012, 2:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/once-and-for-all-the-possessive-is-its-and-its-it-is/630337/31 "2012-08-04T14:54:14Z")
> [@boomerwang](#): > > Similar thing I was pondering recently: are ‘‘it isn’t’’ and ‘‘it’s not’’ grammatically similar, and if not, what differents contexts are they used in? “Grammatically” they’re the same, but discursively they’re used differently. ---
**Author:** ![Inner\_Stickler](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/inner_stickler/32/318_2.png) [@Inner\_Stickler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Inner_Stickler)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2012, 5:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/once-and-for-all-the-possessive-is-its-and-its-it-is/630337/32 "2012-08-04T17:27:50Z")
Don’t be a grammar tease, guizot. Or at least do me the favor of pointing me towards something on the discursive use of contractions. ---
**Author:** ![guizot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guizot/32/3636_2.png) [@guizot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/guizot)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2012, 6:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/once-and-for-all-the-possessive-is-its-and-its-it-is/630337/33 "2012-08-04T18:39:02Z")
> [@Inner\_Stickler](#): > > Don’t be a grammar tease, guizot. Or at least do me the favor of pointing me towards something on the discursive use of contractions. It’s not something which has been studied a lot—because not many corpuses of spoken language have been set up to look at what might lead to a preference one way or the other, but from what I’ve seen, it’s influenced by whether someone is making an explicit denial of a proposition, an implicit denial of a proposition, or whether someone is making a generally corrective statement. Negative contraction (_it isn’t_) happens more with explicit denials than with implicit denials and correctives, which are about equal. Operator contraction (_it’s not_) is more favored for correctives, then implicit denials, and then explicit denials. Also, as I recall one study found that the relative difference seems to be changing (in British speech, at least), though I don’t remember how or in what direction. This is from a conference in London about four years ago, which I couldn’t attend myself, and I don’t have the article handy, but you probably can track it down on-line. ---
**Author:** ![guizot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guizot/32/3636_2.png) [@guizot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/guizot)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2012, 7:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/once-and-for-all-the-possessive-is-its-and-its-it-is/630337/34 "2012-08-04T19:05:15Z")
> [@drewtwo99](#): > > You know what’s more annoying than it’s vs its? Comma splices and unnecessary commas, of which the OP was guilty of so many that I stopped counting. > > If you’re going to criticize other people’s grammar you had better not fuck it up yourself. > [@Inner\_Stickler](#): > > The OP’s comma-ing was pretty much correct if a tad dickensian. Yes. It has no comma splice. And Dickensian commas are hardly a “fuck up.” A lot of comma usage comes down to a question of style. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/once-and-for-all-the-possessive-is-its-and-its-it-is/630337.md?page=1)