“The cat lost it’s collar.”
This reads ‘the cat lost it is collar.’ Expand the contraction and the mistake is obvious.
Punctuation Entry 05 / 1011 60-second read
Its vs. It’s
Possessive versus contraction — a rare case where no apostrophe wins.
The comparisoni
“The cat lost its collar.”
Possessive ‘its’ takes no apostrophe, like his or hers.
More examplesii
01
Its a long drive from here.
It’s a long drive from here.
Expands to ‘It is a long drive’ — contraction, so apostrophe.
02
The restaurant changed it’s menu.
The restaurant changed its menu.
The menu belongs to the restaurant. Possessive ‘its’ takes no apostrophe.
The ruleiii
¶
IT’S = it is. ITS = belongs to it.
Only write IT’S when you could say IT IS or IT HAS. Otherwise use ITS.
Notesiv
Register
Universal. This is one of the most-searched misuses in English; getting it wrong in professional writing gets noticed.
Watch for
No English possessive pronoun (his, hers, its, ours, theirs, yours) takes an apostrophe. If you’re tempted to add one, you probably want the contraction instead.
Memory aidv
Remember it like this
Say the sentence out loud with ‘it is.’ If it sounds wrong, use ITS.
In the wildvi
Real-world-style usage — how this looks in a sentence people would actually write.
- It’s been a long year for the company, and its future depends on the next quarter.
- The cat groomed its paw — it’s been doing that all morning.
Test yourselfvii
Which is right?