• gastroglizzy@piefed.social
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    4 hours ago

    An apostrophe always takes the place of other letters. “It’s” (the contraction) always means “it is”. The possessive form of “it” is always “its”.

    Yes, it matters. Yes, I knew what was intended based on context this time, but context isn’t always available or reliable. The only way to be sure you won’t be misunderstood is to follow the same rules as everyone else every time.

    • topherclay@lemmy.world
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      53 minutes ago

      That’s not true in the case of possessives like “my son’s toy.” In fact it’s the opposite because the apostrophe here just denotes that it’s possesive which is the opposite of the it’s vs its example.

      You might have learned that it replaces part of the word “his” in “my son his toy” but that’s not the real etymology.