8-1-04 "It's" As a Possessive

<body topmargin=0 leftmargin=0 marginheight=0 marginwidth=0> <table cellpadding=0 cellspacing=0 border=0><tr> <td valign="top" colspan=2 height=90 BGCOLOR="#006699" TEXT="#080000" background="042d05a3.jpg"> <div> <FONT SIZE="5" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial" ><B>Big Ring Media Team, Inc.</B></FONT><B>    </B><B> |     </B><A HREF="index.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Big Ring Media Team, Inc."><B>home</B></A></div> <div> </div> </td> </tr><tr> <td valign="top" width=210 BGCOLOR="#FFCC66" TEXT="#080000" background="043d2123.jpg"> <div> Click on this link to return to <A HREF="id39.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Word Watch by Date">Word Watch by Date</A>.</div> <div> Click on this link to go to <A HREF="id40.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Word Watch by Subject">Word Watch by Subject</A>.</div> </td> <td valign="top" height=390 width="100%" BGCOLOR="#FFFFFF" TEXT="#080000"> <div> <I>8-1-04 "It's" As a Possessive</I></div> <div> We've wept. We've pleaded. We've dug in our heels, all to no avail. It seems “it's” as a possessive is about to insinuate its way into accepted usage.</div> <div> The change was inevitable. “Its” was always unique in that it was the only possessive that didn't take an apostrophe. Every other possessive has an apostrophe somewhere: Dan's bike; the girls' apartment; Montana's legislature; the Jones' dog. Placement could be tricky with plurals and other nouns ending in an “ess” sound. But the apostrophe was there.</div> <div> Not so with “its.” With an apostrophe, “it's” was always a contraction: It's [it is] nice to see you again; It's [it has] been a long time since we last spoke.</div> <div> That subtlety was too much for too many writers, and so the inexorable slide into sloppiness continues.</div> <div> For our part, we're sticking with the traditional (and, we feel, correct) usage. We won't recast sentences to avoid the use of “its;” unlike other tricky mechanics, this one won't trip up readers in its correct form. We're not the world's worst retrogrouches when it comes to English, but this is one place where we're holding the line.</div> </td> </tr></table></body>