It's Got Its Problems!

Sometimes it’s really important to use a word purely for its sound or the way it’s written. It’s not necessarily the way it’s used or the sounds its letters make. Sometimes it’s just the interest its use generates within certain circles where its correct or incorrect use might cause its avoidance in the written form. 

The use of ‘its’ or it’s” in oral conversation, of course, has no effect on which form of ‘its’ is used.  Whether it’s ‘its’ or it's it’s’ really doesn’t matter since each ‘its’ or ‘it’s’ in this pair of homophones cannot be distinguished from the other by its sound. On occasion, it’s necessary to think even more carefully when one has a plural possessive but, of course, we all know that it’s not correct to place an apostrophe after ‘its’ to make 'its’'.

It's often occurred to me that it would be good to simplify our English language to make such errors obsolete but I doubt it's ever going to happen, at least not in my lifetime. So for all those who, like me, occasionally miscue with its', or it's' use here's a page that defines it's or its use with great clarity.