Dear Humans,
The it’s/its problem is out of control. Last week, I saw a Denver Post headline with the wrong it’s/its.
I understand the problem. The first lesson we get when we’re learning grammar is that to make a word possessive we add an ‘s. But, of course, the possessive its does not have an apostrophe in it. So it’s a little confusing.
This is a classic case of people blindly applying rules without thinking about the situation. What we ought to do–as writers and people–is stop and make sure we’re saying exactly what we mean to be saying.
Sincerely,
Mr. H
letters to my class 