YSK that the word 'it's' always means 'it is'. The word that means 'belonging to it', like in the phrase 'the cat licks its paw', does not have an apostrophe.

Why YSK: This error is really easy to make, and is one of the most common errors made by people who are otherwise competent at written English. People often make this mistake because apostrophes are used to indicate possession when the subject is a noun, like 'the dog's nose' or 'Alice's restaurant', so it's easy to get into the habit of going for an apostrophe whenever possession is involved.

However, possessive pronouns do not take apostrophes. Consider how words like 'hers', 'his', 'ours', 'yours', and 'theirs' do not have apostrophes. 'Its' is no exception.

As a bonus, 'who's' means 'who is', as in 'Who's there?'. The word meaning 'belonging to whom' is 'whose', as in 'the cat, whose paw we mentioned earlier, is wagging its tail'.

Edit: Someone made a great point, which is that 'it's' can also mean 'it has', as in 'it's been a long day', so my title is incorrect. I should have said 'it's' is always a contraction and is never possessive, which is the general point I was trying to get at. Unfortunately I can't edit the title.

#Education

https://t.me/you_pfff