If your unsure
about ap'strophes, & dont know that its a tipoff that your a compleat
moroon if you're own personal its comes with an apostrophe
at the end, after the s, then go to (k)
possessives,
and find out their why they're
are simple syntactical reasons for the way possessive pronouns are spelled,
and also that thair is only one either/or rule for all possessive
nouns. Just one! (with a tiny correllary)
[And if you don't now have a headache from the confusions of there/their/they're/thair
and your/you're just above,
you might think about banging your head on a wall until you do.]
Meanwhile, most likely, the source of confusion for those that aren't quite sure where to put the apostrophe to show a contraction, like from do not => don't, and where to put an apostrophe that's used to show possession, Mary's lamb, all has to do with the apostrophe itself. An apostrophe is an apostrophe, right? Standing for... ...? What does an apostrophe stand for again?
Really, answer that: The
apostrophe stands for __ ______ __ __ _____ __ __ ______ __ ______
(Try it. Fill in those blanks.)
Hint:
a letter
or a word
or a group
of words
The apostrophe stands for a letter or a word
or a group of words that
has been left out. Omitted. Dropped from the page. Kapoof!
The time is twelve o'clock.
What got left out in o ' clock ? (Answer: the hour hand, because
it's hidden by the minute hand.) (Humor.) What about
three o'clock, then?
It's three of
the clock, or on
the clock. And it got said so fast so
often that the of the
turned into a sort of half-blubber, three o'duh
clock, and finally--this can take centuries--it was both pronounced and
then finally represented on paper ("spelled") with just the o' :
It's three o'f the
clock.
That group of
words is said to have contracted, down to what was being said. Also true
of:
don'ot
couldn'ot
isn'ot
can'not
wasn'ot
'cause (for be'cause)
He'is
She'is
They'are
It'is
----whoa! There's our little demon. It's is a contraction
of it is.
And, in fact,
all these contractions center around the short everyday auxillary verbs--is/was
are/were should/could/would have/had
All those come from just two verbs--to be, and to have.
It's
cool. He's ok. She'd had her nap already. They're
very happy. I haven't been listening. You weren't either, but you
should've been. But I can't. It is a problem: it's a big problem.
It's is
a contraction of the tiny verb clause, it is. The other its,
as in my cat, its whiskers; the storm,
its thunder; our love, it's
dead. Versus, our love, its purity.
It's =
It + is (with the i from is dropped out)
my
our
its
= a possessive pronoun, in the same family with:
your
your
his,her,its
their
'
its'
and its
These are really bad. The first one is stupid: it means you don't know
diddle about possessive pronouns or about contractions, and
the second
one, where the apostrophe hovers above the s somewhere, put it where
you like, dear Reader... that one is sort of cute. But readers can
tell. You're
not getting away with nothin.
It's a mildly charming fudge to spell its or it's
with the apostrophe sort of
hanging above the s, maybe to the right of it, maybe to the left,
but apostrophes stand
for letters left out, so really its best rendition would be:
it'
But that sort of looks like 'it, if you get what I mean.