Jose Carillo's English Forum
English Grammar and Usage Problems => Badly Written, Badly Spoken => Topic started by: Miss Mae on July 04, 2015, 10:19:00 PM
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Sir, is it true that the apostrophe in it's had only been there to avoid confusion with the elided it is?
I came across that assertion in the book The Fry Chronicles (Penguin Books, 438 pages) and got curious.
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The author of that book—it’s actually his autobiography—is Stephen Fry, a British comedian, actor, writer, and activist. I’d say his views about English grammar are quirkish but charming, fun to read, and sometimes devilishly spot-on (Check him out in the YouTube video “Stephen Fry’s Kinetic Typography” (http://josecarilloforum.com/forum/index.php?topic=6123.0) by clicking the indicated link). But as to the assertion that, as you quote him, “the apostrophe in ‘it’s’ had only been there to avoid confusion with the elided ‘it’s,’” I frankly don’t know what to make of it. What I know is that “it’s” is used only as a contraction of “it is” or “it has,” as in “It’s a rainy day today” (Unelided: “It is a rainy day today”) and “It’s been a lovely evening” (Unelided: “It has been a lovely evening.”) The elided “it’s” is unique in that while every English noun or pronoun with an apostrophe-“s” indicates possession, “it’s” doesn’t. “It’s” only works as a contraction of “it is” or “it has,” so I suspect that Stephen must have had something in mind—perhaps a zany punch line that never got written in that book—when he made that curious assertion.
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Thank you!