Nick's Guide to Great Writing! |
| This material is on nuances, and shades of gray. While it is included in the writing section of my homepage, it is useful for speakers and general students of English, both native and non-native learners of English vocabulary. |
This page ©2001 by nicholasemiller |
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class or type: | Level of difficulty
1 elementary
5 intermediate
9 advanced |
| It's and its | ...
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| Explanation, discussion and example(s): |
It's and its also cause problems for native speakers - including university-level English teachers and writers - and many students new to English. Please study the following for meanings and examples:
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It's
is a contraction for it is. It is is almost always used as the subject and verb of a sentence or clause.
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It's understood that the apostrophe in it's stands for the missing 'i'. |
Everyone is shedding their clothes because it's such a hot day. |
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Its
is the possessive pronoun for it. Yes, almost all possessives have an apostrophe, but this is one of the few that does NOT.
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The leading cellphone company increased its subscriber base by nearly 200,000 people last month. |
The dog ate its food. |
It's funny to think that most computer viruses are aimed at the Windows' platform, because its system is the most detested in the world.
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| Note: Due to a bug in Microsoft Internet Explorer, you must click next question for the first question. This does not happen in Netscape. In any browser, click on the [a], [b] or [c] for the answer and the next question button to see the next question. |
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