Originally published at: Animatronic with deer head plays a tune on it's guitar belly | Boing Boing
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It’s “Its,” not “it’s,” sweetie. 
English is insane.
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Well, not quite, in this case. Its is the same as his or hers or theirs. Nobody ever writes hi’s or her’s or their’s.
But there’s (tee hee) a very simple rule to ensure one is NEVER embarrassed by getting its wrong. The rule is never, ever type it’s.
If you mean it’s as it is, type it is. In all other cases it is its. It’s that simple.
And once one has grasped this rule it’s then much easier to decide when it’s works and its use is safe.
…and to never fall into the trap of thinking its needs a possessive apostrophe in the way that it would if Itt from the Addams Family was actually spelt It and then It’s possessive apostrophe would be in order.
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" Bad grammar causes actual physical distress in others, study reveals."
https://www.msn.com/en-us/health/medical/bad-grammar-causes-actual-physical-distress-in-others-study-reveals/ar-AA1iYGVG
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Thank you, the show is not too far from me, and a better choice than Christmas shopping.
As long as I avoid the apostrophe constabulary’s clutches and the Leith police dismisseth us.
I find this somewhat disquieting. There’s something weird and uncanny about it (in the best possible ways), and the simple, repetitive strumming works better to contribute to that than if it were actually playing a song.
The more I learn about the history of the English language, the more it actually makes sense. I’m really sorry that was never part of my grade school education as so many confusing, arbitrary-seeming rules turn out to actually be incredibly straightforward, something we don’t realize because the original convention is forgotten. I’ve spent so much of my life being unnecessarily confused by various aspects of English. Apostrophes, for example, are really simple - they’re used when one or more letters is omitted in a contraction. That’s it. This is no longer obvious, because we only use the contracted version of possessives these days, and don’t realize that the original convention was to add “es” to nouns. So the possessive apostrophe is just another contraction.
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It’s never been that simple.
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It is - and it’s always been - that simple. (Yes! It’s can also be short for ‘it has’ - but never writing it’s still helps.)
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