Everything English

The English language has many exceptions to seemingly hard and fast rules, and these exceptions often cause problems for the novice writer. One such issue is the possessive form of the pronoun “it.” First, let’s remind ourselves of what a possessive form is. The possessive form of a noun or pronoun is used to show ownership. When writing the possessive form of almost all other singular nouns, the writer is instructed to add an apostrophe followed by an “s” at the end of the word. Examples include “the duck’s quack,” “the girl’s doll,” and “the man’s son.” Simple, right?

Therefore, you might think that you should simply tack on the requisite apostrophe and “s” to “it” in order to create the possessive form. However, this makes the word “it’s,” which is seen in the English language as the contraction for “it is.” An example of the proper use of the word “it’s” is as follows: “It’s by the cat’s water bowl.” Therefore, we cannot treat the possessive form of “it” in the same way that we treat other singular nouns. For “it,” we simply forgo the apostrophe. In other words, the possessive form of “it” is “its.” An example of the proper use of the possessive form of “it” is “The cat stepped in its water bowl.”