Editing Apostrophe (section)

===== Possessive pronouns and adjectives =====

No apostrophe is used in the following possessive pronouns and adjectives: ''hers'', ''his'', ''its'', ''my'', ''mine'', ''ours'', ''theirs'', ''whose'', and ''yours''. All other possessive pronouns do end with an apostrophe and an ''s''. In singular forms, the apostrophe comes first, e.g. ''one's''; ''everyone's''; ''somebody's'', ''nobody else's'', etc., while the apostrophe follows the ''s'' in plural forms as with nouns: ''the others' complaints''.

The possessive of ''it'' was originally ''it's'', in contrast to the modern ''its''. The apostrophe was dropped by the early 19th century. Authorities are now unanimous that ''[[it's]]'' can be only a contraction of ''it is'' or ''it has''.<ref>[http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=its its] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110606143303/http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=its |date=6 June 2011}}. Online Etymology Dictionary. Retrieved on 7 April 2013.</ref>{{NoteTag|See for example ''[[New Hart's Rules]]''. Not one of the other sources listed on this page supports the use of ''it's'' as a possessive form of ''it''.}} Despite this, using ''it's'' as a possessive pronoun is a common [[grammatical error]] in present times.