Study English Grammar

We use the apostrophe mark to indicate the omission in a standard contraction. We’d better explain the rule about this in some detail as this is where a good deal of the chaos over punctuation starts. If we had to identify one area that creates problems for students, it would be this idea of contractions – that is, where a word is shortened and an apostrophe is used to indicate this.

It’s
The first point to repeat is that the apostrophe has two different functions. One, as we have seen above at great length, is for the possessive case; It is Jane’s book. But then the apostrophe is also used in a different way with a different meaning when we use it to indicate a contraction. The most famous contraction, and the one that sinks a thousand exam scripts, is when, instead of writing it is, we write it’s. Here the apostrophe signals that the two words it and is have been contracted into one word and that a letter has been omitted: it’s, then, means it is, or, in some cases, it has, as in: It’s been raining here all day.

Its
Many students know this, but then, often without thinking, they remember that somewhere they have seen a word its which is a personal possessive pronoun: the dog wags its tail. If you are guilty of this – in other words, if you are the sort of person who writes the dog wags its tail – there is only one way out of the muddle. This is to learn that it’s always means it is or it has. Some teachers would go further than this and suggest that the only safe way to avoid making the error is never to write ‘it’s’. In other words, they suggest that, in order to stop yourself getting in a mess, you should always write it is and never contract them into a single word. If you learn that, then you should be able to learn that there is only one form of its, and that is its.

The difficulty with this advice, though sound, is that ‘it is’ can sound very formal, and it may not be possible to follow it all the time. Again, few people say ‘it is’, and the force of speech and common usage to change language is considerable. Indeed, it seems not at all unlikely that in time the distinctions between it’s and its will disappear. In the meantime, however, it is as well to learn the difference.

Quite a lot of people disapprove of the use of contractions in essay writing, or in a book. We have used them because they give an informal air, but some stylists would frown at all of the following contractions:

he’s for he is
she’s (or she is let’s for let us doesn’t for does not
won’t for will not weren’t for were not
weren’t for it is
Who’s for who is

The advice to avoid these contractions is good advice and well meant. But W8 all live in the real world where these contractions are used millions of limes a day in both speech and writing. The subcontracted forms are inevitably becoming more and more rare, perhaps because they sound stilted. The advice, then, has to be ‘do not use these forms if you are someone who gets them wrong’. If you do get them wrong, don’t give up trying to sort them out. After all, it is not really your fault if a phrase such as Hatty’s home can mean both Harry is home and the home belonging to Harry. The context will tell you what is meant: in the first instance, where it means Harry is home, the verb is has been contracted; in the second Instance, Harry’s is the possessive form. In examples like this, the possessive Case and the contraction are identical. But phrases such as Jane’s book can Wily mean the book belonging to Jane: it would make no sense if we tried to make it mean Jane is book. There does come a point, in other words, where you have to use your common sense.