Is It “It’s” or “Its”? There’s One EASY Way To Tell!

“It’s” and “its” mean two COMPLETELY different things. These two little words get mixed up all. the. time. In fact, I’d say it’s one of the most common errors that I come across while copyediting. About this error, Lynne Truss (author of Eats, Shoots & Leaves) said, “Getting your itses mixed up is the greatest solecism in the world of punctuation. No matter that you have a PhD and have read all of Henry James twice. If you still persist in writing ‘good food at it’s best,’ you deserve to be struck by lightning, hacked up on the spot, and buried in an unmarked grave.” 😬

So how can you make sure you never commit this egregious grammatical sin? First, know the rule. You can’t make the right choice without knowing which word is which. Then, learn the one simple test that will ensure you pick the correct word every time! (If you want to skip to that part, just scroll to the bottom of this post and find the heading “The SIMPLE Test: How To Always Pick the Right One.”)

The Rule

Did you spot the difference between “its” and “it’s”? That apostrophe between the “t” and “s” makes all the difference in the world.

“Its” is a possessive pronoun meaning “belonging to it.”

The jungle was dangerous at night; that’s when its most fearsome predators roamed freely.

Reworded, this sentence would be “The jungle was dangerous at night; that’s when the most fearsome predators belonging to the jungle roamed freely.”

“It’s” is a contraction of “it is” or “it has.”

It’s not safe to walk through the jungle at night. = It is not safe to walk through the jungle at night.

So Its = “belonging to it” and “it’s” = “it is” or “it has.” Easy, right?

So What’s the Problem?

One of the main reasons why people mix up “its” and “it’s” is that the combination of apostrophe + “s” is frequently used to show possession. To say “the friend belonging to Mowgli,” you’d say “Mowgli‘s friend.”

So, naturally, people want to add apostrophe + “s” to “it” when something belongs to “it.” However, you CANNOT use “it’s” to show possession—”it’s” can ONLY be used to mean “it is” or “it has.”

The tiger stalked it’s prey.

It’s tempting in this sentence to add apostrophe + “s” to “it” to show that the prey belonged to the tiger, but that is incorrect. The possessive form of the pronoun “it” is “its.”

The tiger stalked its prey.

In fact, there is NO personal pronoun that takes an apostrophe in the possessive form:

Some of the indefinite pronouns use apostrophe + “s” to communicate possession (like “everyone’s), but the personal pronouns (“I,” “you,” “he,” “she,” “it,” “we,” “they”) do not.

The reason why people struggle with “its” and not the other possessive forms of personal pronouns (“yours,” “hers,” “his,” etc.) is that “it’s” is a homophone of “its.” There is never a situation when “her’s” would be correct, so everyone knows to just always leave the apostrophe out of that word. But because “it’s” is a real word that is frequently used, it gets mixed up with “its.”

The Apostrophe’s Job in “It’s”

Another job of the apostrophe—aside from creating the possessive form of a word—is to indicate a dropped letter, meaning it marks where a letter (or multiple letters) has been left out of a word or phrase. That’s what the apostrophe is doing in words like “y’all” (“you all”), “don’t” (“do not”), and “I’m” (“I am”).

This role of indicating a dropped letter is what the apostrophe is doing in “it’s.”

Knowing what the apostrophe’s job is in the word “it’s” leads us straight to the simple test that will help you pick the correct word every time!

The SIMPLE Test: How To Always Pick the Right One

EVERY time you use “it’s,” you should be able to substitute “it is” or “it has” and the sentence or phrase should still make sense. If you replace “it’s” with “it is” or “it has” and the sentence DOESN’T make sense, you need “its” instead. Let’s try it.

The bear floated on it’s back down the river.

SUB “it is” or “it has”:

The bear floated on it is back down the river. / The bear floated on it has back down the river.

Neither of those makes sense, so we need “its” instead.

The bear floated on its back down the river.

Baloo said it’s better to live off the “bare necessities of life.”

SUB “it is” or “it has”:

Baloo said it is better to live off the “bare necessities of life.”

That sentence makes sense, so “it’s” is correct!

Bagheera heard Baloo’s yells and thought, “Well, it’s happened. It took a little longer than I thought, but it’s happened.”

Sub “it is” or “it has”:

Bagheera heard Baloo’s yells and thought, “Well, it is happened. It took a little longer than I thought, but it is happened.”

“It is” didn’t work—let’s try “it has”:

Bagheera heard Baloo’s yells and thought, “Well, it has happened. It took a little longer than I thought, but it has happened.”

We’re back in business! “It’s” is correct because “it has” works in the sentence.

This substitution trick should work EVERY time, so it’s a fool-proof way to decide which one—”its” or “it’s”—you need.

The apostrophe in “it’s” can certainly be a tricky one. But use this trick to help you conquer the challenge of “it’s” vs. “its” and rest assured that you’re not alone in your struggle. In fact, the Oxford Companion to English Literature says, “There never was a golden age in which the rules for the possessive apostrophe were clear-cut and known, understood and followed by most educated people.” It’s a timeless error but not one that’s without a solution!

Sources:

• The Chicago Manual of Style. 17th ed. Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press, 2017.
• Ebbitt, D. R., and W. R. Ebbitt. Index to English. 8th ed. New York: Oxford University Press, 1990.
• Einsohn, Amy. The Copyeditor’s Handbook. 3rd ed. Berkeley and Los Angeles, California: Univ of California Pr, 2011.
• Truss, Lynne. Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation. New York, NY: Gotham Books, 2003.