Clarifying some Punctuation Issues . . .

In the last post, we briefly talked about contractions. They're very natural, conversational, and acceptable. They're part of plain English. They help make statements clear and easily understood. What a concept!

Sometimes, though, they raise the issue of the apostrophe -- when and when not to use it.

For example, "it's" vs. "its." The first one is a contraction for "it is." The second one is possessive; e.g., the dog chased its tail (you wouldn't say the dog chased "it is" tail).

I think people get confused, though, because we DO use an apostrophe when making non-personal words possessive. For instance, we write, "The dog's bowl," or "The committee's decision." In these two cases, we're making those words possessive, and an apostrophe is required.

With personal pronouns (its, her, his), however, we do NOT use an apostrophe. So it's not difficult to see where confusion can set in.

Oh, one more thing: "it's," which means "it is," also means "it has": it's been fun, folks!