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byron13 -> RE: Off Topic: English grammar (9/30/2004 8:05:04 PM)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: pasternakski
quote:
ORIGINAL: Halsey
The twenty-seco(nd) [8D] Its' (possessive) [8D] It's- it is (abv) [8D]
The cat's playing. (abv)
The cats' toy. (possessive)
The cats are playing. (plural)
Where is this teacher from?[X(]
Hold it, Halsey. Cats' means "belonging to the cats." It is a plural possessive. Cat's is the correct way to express "belonging to the cat," singular.
It's is a contraction of "it is," not an abbreviation.
There is no such thing as its'. The cat's playing could describe how the cat sounds on the piano ("Man, that cat can cut a groove") but not much else.
Yup, same mistake as made before. While plural possessives will place the apostrophe after the "s", e.g., the birds' wings (or the cats' toy), it don't happen that way with its. "Its" is the possessive form of it, and there aren't no apostrophe.
Note that, as Pasternatski pointed out, its and it's are kind of the exception. Contractions and singular possessives are usually done the same way: "cat's" could either be a contraction of "cat is" or the possessive form of cat. Thus, "The cat's dead meat" could mean that cat is dead meat or we may discussing the dead meat belonging to the cat. Hypothetically, speaking of course, in medieval English and even in some Gallic tongues, the term cat . . . never mind.
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