Forum: english.stackexchange.com
Tags: <word-choice><grammar><orthography><confusables><homophones>
Title: What is the best way to explain how to choose between "its" and "it's"?
Question: Probably one of the most frequent grammar mistakes in the English language is:   The dog sat on it's mat.   Since spelling checkers don't catch it, and it is even logical, since you would correctly write:   The dog sat on Fluffy's mat.   What is the best way to explain to a learner of English how to choose between  it's  and  its ?

Answers:
sents: text: This is actually really easy, do you mean "it is" or not?
text: Frankly native speakers seem to make more mistakes with it than foreign learners.
answer_details: author: english.stackexchange.com/users/None/
score: 42
sents: text: The easiest way to remember is that you don't say "he's" or "she's" if you're talking about something someone owns.
text: There are special words for that: "his" and "hers".
text: It follows, then, that there'd be a special word for the genderless
text: "it" too - "its".
answer_details: author: english.stackexchange.com/users/80/Matt Hamilton
score: 22
sents: text: Print this out, perhaps. http://theoatmeal.com/comics/apostrophe
answer_details: author: english.stackexchange.com/users/984/kguest
score: 20
sents: text: If nothing else works, it can be beneficial to point out that none of these related possessive forms has an apostrophe:
text: his hers its theirs yours ours
text: If something belongs to it , its form looks just like his and hers .
text: If it is short for it is , then it's it's .
answer_details: author: english.stackexchange.com/users/4912/jbelacqua
score: 7
sents: text: Contractions always take an apostrophe.
text: (You can't write cant for cannot .)
text: Possesives can, but need not.
text: ("Is that her book?"
text: "No, it's Pat's book")
answer_details: author: english.stackexchange.com/users/488/vanden
score: 2
sents: text: What is the best way to explain to a learner of English how to choose between
text: it's and its ?
text: •
text: I sat on my mat
text: •
text: you sat on your mat •
text: he [my brother] sat on his mat •
text: she [my sister] sat on her mat •
text: It [the dog] sat on its mat.
text: •
text: we [my dog and I] sat on our mats
text: •
text: you [you and your dog] sat on your mats
text: •
text: they [he and his dogs] sat on their mats.
text: Note the total absence of any possessive apostrophe.
text: We do not say * I sat on my's mat .
text: The possessive determiner , its , is precisely what its grammatical term suggests—possessive; hence the genitive or possessive apostrophe is unnecessary.
text: It's as simple as that.
answer_details: author: english.stackexchange.com/users/44619/Mari-Lou A
score: 1
sents: text: Lynne Truss in her book Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation explains it in a rather straightforward manner: The rule is: the word 'it's' (with apostrophe) stands for 'it is' or 'it has'.
text: If the word does not stand for 'it is' or 'it has' then what you require is 'its'.
answer_details: author: english.stackexchange.com/users/388236/Vance
score: 1
sents: text: It needs to be understood that there was much disagreement about this up until maybe 60 years ago, when the "authorities" finally agreed that the possessive of "it" should be "its", to avoid confusion with the contraction "it's",
text: meaning "it is" or "it has".
text: Like any such change in the "rules" of English, it's taken decades to take hold.
text: And, I'll have to admit, when keyboarding its fairly easy to get it wrong.
answer_details: author: english.stackexchange.com/users/70861/Hot Licks
score: 1

Summary of the answers:
The easiest way to choose between "its" and "it's" is to ask whether or not you mean "it is". If it is short for "it is", then it's "it's" as contractions always take an apostrophe.
The rule is to use "it's" when you mean "it is" and "its" when you mean "of it".
The easiest way to choose between "its" and "it's" is to ask whether or not you mean "it is". If it is short for "it is", then it's "it's" as contractions always take an apostrophe.
This is actually really easy, you ask yourself if you mean "it is" or not?  S1: If the word does not stand for 'it is' then what you require is 'its'.  Lynne Truss in her book  Eats, Shoots & Leaves states that the rule is: the word 'it's' (with apostrophe) stands for 'it is' or 'it has'.
 Contractions always take an apostrophe. Therefore, if the word does not stand for 'it is' or 'it has', then what you require is 'its'.
The easiest way to explain this is to make it clear that contractions always have an apostrophe.