{"id":450,"date":"2016-01-24T08:00:27","date_gmt":"2016-01-23T23:00:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.law.harvard.edu\/josephkim\/?p=450"},"modified":"2016-01-09T07:05:52","modified_gmt":"2016-01-08T22:05:52","slug":"its-its-your-and-youre","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/josephkim\/2016\/01\/24\/its-its-your-and-youre\/","title":{"rendered":"It’s, its, your, and you’re"},"content":{"rendered":"

Look at these sentences can you pick out the incorrect ones?<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Its raining outside.<\/li>\n
  2. It’s raining outside.<\/li>\n
  3. Your car is being towed.<\/li>\n
  4. You’re car is being towed.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Both 1 and 4 are incorrect. (2 and 3 are correct.)<\/p>\n

    The most common grammatical error I see on presentations is between it’s and its. The second most common error I see is between your and you’re.\u00a0The difference between its<\/span> and it’s<\/span> is simple. It’s<\/span> (with the apostrophe) = It is<\/span>. If you use it’s<\/span>, be sure that you can replace it’s<\/span> with it is<\/span>. So sentence 2 is correct because you can substitute It’s<\/span> with It is<\/span>. Sentence 1 is incorrect. The confusion is that we often add an apostrophe for other words which have a similar meaning to its. For example, Jenny’s car is outside<\/em>. The apostrophe indicates that the car belongs to Jenny. It is possessive. However, the possessive form of it = its<\/span>\u00a0(without the apostrophe). If you remember this it will help you not to confuse the two terms.<\/p>\n

    The difference between your<\/span> and you’re<\/span> is also pretty straightforward. You’re (with the apostrophe) = You are. So sentence 4 is incorrect since if you replace you’re<\/span> with you are<\/span>, the sentence is nonsensical – You are car is being towed<\/em>. \u00a0The word your indicates possession. Your mother, your father, your job, your car, your house, your apple, your computer, or your apple computer. You’re = You are.<\/p>\n

    You’re done reading this post. It’s important to remember that it’s easy to confuse the words ‘its’ and ‘it’s.’ I hope your day is filled with joy.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Look at these sentences can you pick out the incorrect ones? Its raining outside. It’s raining outside. Your car is being towed. You’re car is being towed. Both 1 and 4 are incorrect. (2 and 3 are correct.) The most common grammatical error I see on presentations is between it’s and its. The second most […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2611,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[23908],"tags":[41720],"class_list":["post-450","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-communication","tag-english-grammar","post-preview"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/josephkim\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/450","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/josephkim\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/josephkim\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/josephkim\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2611"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/josephkim\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=450"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/josephkim\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/450\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":881,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/josephkim\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/450\/revisions\/881"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/josephkim\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=450"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/josephkim\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=450"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/josephkim\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=450"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}