Possessive Form of “It”

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, this is Marty, and I’m calling from Grand Prairie, Texas.

Hi, Marty, welcome to the program.

Hello.

Well, it’s about it’s.

I know there’s a hard and fast rule for it, but the it’s possessive and the it’s contraction,

Every time I get to that, I stumble.

Yeah.

It just locks up.

So I’ve pretty much given up, and now I just eliminate the apostrophe on both of them.

And just save a keystroke.

Oh!

So every time you get to that, you lock up, huh?

Wait, it just doesn’t…

I just…

Both apostrophes in both cases make sense.

It follows all the rules.

Mm.

Interesting, interesting.

Yeah, well, that’s the thing, Marty,

Is that it doesn’t follow the rules.

There’s lots of things that do that.

Right, right.

And it is in that category.

And you know what?

I lock up, too, when I run across that expression as well.

Yeah?

Yeah.

Yeah.

And I’ll tell you why.

Actually, it’s really traumatic.

When I was in sixth grade, I had a really mean teacher.

She was super mean, especially to me.

And I used to confuse it’s apostrophe S and it’s with no apostrophe.

And, you know, I would write like a perfect paper, but I would have that one thing wrong in it.

If I wrote I-T apostrophe S and it was supposed to be it’s possessive, she would write sad.

It’s apostrophe S equals it is.

So I just always remember that.

It’s apostrophe S equals it is.

And I take off the sad.

I don’t have the advantage of having been traumatized in elementary school.

Well, I can do that for you if you like.

Marty, sad.

Just hear my voice in your head.

Okay.

I’ll try.

But, I mean, seriously, I mean, it was very traumatic for me,

But I remember it now that if you have I-T apostrophe S,

It equals it is every single time.

It’s is an exception, and that’s why you’re always locking up.

So you’re saying that if I can replace the it’s with it is

And it makes sense and it’s grammatically correct,

Then I should use IT apostrophe S.

But is the reverse also true?

Right, right, right.

Well, the dog is chewing its bone.

Right, and it doesn’t work if you say dog is chewing its bone.

Exactly.

Very good. Very nice.

Marty, does that make sense?

Yes, it does.

Yeah?

I hope that will help.

All right, well, Marty, send us an email once in a while

And let us know if you’ve still got it.

If not, we’ll have Martha traumatize you again.

Oh, okay. That sounds good.

Thanks so much for calling, Marty.

You’re welcome.

All right.

Bye-bye.

Bye.

You know, I moved to California in July, Martha, and there’s an ice cream treat out here, and it’s called It’s It.

Oh, no.

Yeah, yeah.

It’s hyphenated.

It’s I-T apostrophe S hyphen I-T.

It’s kind of like a moon pie or an ice cream sandwich.

It’s like a cookie with ice cream in the middle.

I don’t know exactly what it is.

I’ve never had one.

But it’s really, you look at this sign, you can look at this sign for an hour and wonder if there’s a mistake up there.

Because it’s just not a logical name for a food item.

Oh, man.

It’s it.

That’s really catchy.

You think it’s good advertising?

I’m told that they’re very good.

And I think I’ve even driven by the factory, but I haven’t had one yet.

Okay.

So if it has the apostrophe, then it is it, right?

Yeah, I think that’s what they’re saying.

I think they’re saying that this is the treat that you’ve been waiting for.

So it’s it.

Okay.

We’ll see.

Tell us about your grammatical traumas or tricks.

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