*Since the majority of Steemians put so much time into writing English here, we inevitably find that we use the words **It's** and **Its** regularly - but there are misunderstood rules about the use of these words which I also get confused by sometimes - so I took a refresher course!*

![it's complicated](https://www.yourtango.com/sites/default/files/styles/header_slider/public/its-complicated.jpg?itok=7gYvV_B9)

The short answer to the question "Which do I use out of It's and Its?" is that if the use of the word is done in a way that means there are letters that have been removed then we use the apostrophe version of **It's**. For example, the phrase "it is" can be shortened to "It's" and the apostrophe denotes that the second letter "i" has been removed. This is the only situation where an apostrophe is used with "Its". 

The confusion arises because the other usage of "Its" denotes possession or ownership - for example, "The boat sank because its hull fractured" is a correct use of the word "its" because there is no missing letter or conjunction of words - the "its" only refers to possession of the hull by the boat (The hull is part of the boat and in English, perhaps confusingly, this is classed as possession). Since there are many forms of possession in language which DO involve the removal of a letter, such as where we convert "It has" into "It's", we tend to make the mistake of assuming that all forms of possession require an apostrophe, when they do not.

The memory I left school with of this was actually wrong, so I have no doubt written countless posts where my use of its was wrong too!

Maybe this will help improve our communication a tiny bit!? :)

Wishing you well,

Ura Soul

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