Re: Re[2]: It's and its

["Brad Barnes (T)" <blb -at- FORMTEK -dot- COM>]

> On Tue, 25 Jun 1996, Virginia L. Krenn wrote:

> > However, if the possessive rule is followed, it would make sense to
> > write "it's". The problem is that this is an exception to the rule.

> Not so.  The 's is used to show possession with used with nouns, but
> never with pronouns.  Possessive pronouns have their own forms (his,
> hers, its, their, etc.) so do not need the 's to show possession.

> Our use of the 's with nouns to show possession goes back to an older way
> of showing possession.  At one time it was customary to say something
> like "Tom his house" where today we would say Tom's house.  People tended
> to say the phrase quickly and the words became slurred over.  Eventually
> we began leaving out the "hi" in "his" and the apostrophe took their place.

> Since "his" was already possessive, there was no need to do this for the
> pronoun.

Ahem...

It can be a proper noun. Consider Cousin It of the Addamm's Family. :-)

Examples:

        Cousin It's new beehive hairdo rivals Marge Simpson's.

        It's Cousin It's bubble car.

Uh oh...is this topical? Sorry Eric!

Brad Barnes
Technical Writer

                  TECHWR-L List Information
To send a message about technical communication to 2500+ list readers,
E-mail to TECHWR-L -at- LISTSERV -dot- OKSTATE -dot- EDU -dot-  Send administrative commands
         ALL other questions or problems concerning the list
       should go to the listowner, Eric Ray, at ejray -at- ionet -dot- net -dot-