"It's" vs. "Its": What your spell-check won't tell you

Many writers, even those who pride themselves on correct grammar, consistently mess up the proper use of “it's” vs. “its”. This can be traced back to an oft-misunderstood symbol, in this case, the humble apostrophe (that would be the long official name for the very short little symbol shown here: ').

The apostrophe, although it has two very distinct meanings, is commonly conceived to represent ownership. An apostrophe at the end of a word designates that the word it is attached to owns something.

Examples: “John's new bike”
“The child's birthday party”

and so on.

An apostrophe also has a 2nd meaning. It is used to mark the omission of a letter or letters in a word, when the word is actually being shortened to combine two words into one. More specifically, the 2nd word of this combo is nearly always the word “is” (with very few exceptions, such as “you're” and “I'd”, which we don't need to get into here). The apostrophe, then, is used to represent the letter “i” of the word “is” that has been dropped when the 2 words were melded into one. In order to show that it used to be there, the apostrophe is used as a marker of where it used to be, kind of like a headstone on a grave.

Examples: “That's my coffee”. (“That IS my coffee”)
 “Where's my hat?” (Where IS my hat?”)
 “What's your story?”(What IS your story?”)

In the case of “Its” vs. “It's”, the question becomes, which of the above definitions of the apostrophe is being used?

It's simple: when it comes to the word “it's”, it's always the 2nd definition of the apostrophe that's being applied.

In other words, “It's” ALWAYS means “It is”. The apostrophe in “it's” ALWAYS represents the “i” that is being dropped to convert 2 words into one.

Examples: “It's a dog” means “it IS a dog”.
“It's a hat” means “it IS a hat”.

The flip side of this coin is that “its” without an apostrophe only means one thing, and one thing only: it represents ownership of something about to be mentioned in the same sentence. This may seem a little counter-intuitive, since in the rest of the grammatical universe, the apostrophe rules on questions of ownership. But since, in the case of “its”, the apostrophe has already been hogged to show the omission of the letter “i”, “its” WITHOUT an apostrophe ALWAYS means “belonging to it”.

Examples: “Its colors were stunning”
“The book was a great read, and its author did a fantastic job”.

All of the above can boil down to one simple cardinal rule. If you can remember this one thing, then you will never mess be confused about the uses of “it's” vs. “its” again:


“It's” (with an apostrophe) ALWAYS stands for “IT IS”.

Therefore: “its” (without an apostrophe) ALWAYS stands for “belonging to it”.

If you are not sure whether to use “it's” or “its”, re-read the sentence in question to yourself and ask yourself if you want to say “IT IS” in it. If you do, use “it's”. If you don't, use “its”.

Happy its/it's-ing!