Its and It’s

It’s a problem that arises because of its use, or not, of the apostrophe.  This is something that confuses many people, and it’s not just learners of English who fall victim to its difficulties.

I have used both “it’s” and “its” twice each in the opening paragraph, to show you how they differ in meaning.  A teacher I had many years ago used to say that an apostrophe was a tombstone for a departed letter – a bit morbid, perhaps, but in most cases this is true. 

An apostrophe is used when a word has been shortened by leaving out one or more letters, such as in “Lucy’s car’s crashed and she’s been taken to hospital”.  In the case of “car’s” and “she’s” it is easy to work out what is missing, as the full version would be “car has” and “she has”.  However, “Lucy’s” is an indication that what follows is something owned by Lucy, so what could be missing?  If you go back a few hundred years it was common for people to write “William his book” rather than “William’s book”, so “hi” is missing; but Lucy is a woman, so changing “Lucy her car” to “Lucy’s car” means that my old teacher’s tombstone theory needs a bit of tweaking!

Going back to “it’s” and “its”, the apostrophe is still a tombstone, because the full version is “it is”, and you should usually use the full version when writing anything official or formal, except when reporting what someone has said.  “Its” is a possessive pronoun,  as are “his” and “hers”.

If you wonder which to use, remember that you would never write “hi’s” or “her’s” as a possessive pronoun, so you don’t use “it’s” either.

Also remember that “it’s” is always short for “it is” or “it has” (as in “it’s been great to meet you”), and never short for “it his”! 

You can get help with your written English by making use of the services of Welford Writes at www.welfordwrites.co.uk, and you are also welcome to suggest topics for this blog by leaving a comment.

Insure, Ensure, Assure

These words cause confusion, partly because there are differences between British and American usage.

In British usage their meanings are quite distinct, namely:

insure – to protect something (your house, car, etc) against loss or damage, usually by taking out an insurance policy.

ensure – to make sure that something will happen, as in “we need to ensure that she keeps her promise”.

assure – to make somebody confident about something or to convince them, as in “I can assure you that the money will be paid” or “She assured us that she had done what she promised”.

In American usage,  insure and ensure are simply variant spellings of each other and the distinction in meaning has been lost.

Remember that we use “ensure” to refer to future possibilties and “assure” when something is already in place or has happened.

There is also confusion over “insurance” and “assurance”, in that we typically have “car insurance” but “life assurance”.  The thing to remember here is that we insure against possibilities but assure against the consequences of certainties – your car MAY be damaged or stolen, but your life will DEFINITELY come to an end one day – sorry!

Please feel free to offer a comment on this or any other posting on this blog – perhaps you want to tell me about a problem that I might be able to help you with.  You can also visit my website at www.welfordwrites.co.uk and find out how I can help you in other ways.