by Shannon Naylor<\/p>\n
Its\/It\u2019s || Your\/You\u2019re || Their\/They\u2019re<\/strong><\/p>\n The trick to getting these words right is to remember when to use the apostrophe. Where most people get confused is that, in English, apostrophes are used to indicate both possession and contractions (when a letter is \u201cmissing\u201d). But what happens when you aren\u2019t sure which takes the apostrophe?<\/p>\n Just remember that the rule for contractions is stronger<\/em> than the rule for possession.<\/strong> This means that \u201cit\u2019s,\u201d \u201cyou\u2019re,\u201d and \u201cthey\u2019re\u201d mean \u201cit is,\u201d \u201cyou are,\u201d and \u201cthey are\u201d because the apostrophe indicates the dropped \u201ci,\u201d and \u201ca.\u201d And the possessives \u201cits,\u201d \u201cyour,\u201d and \u201ctheir\u201d don\u2019t take apostrophes because they have no missing letters.<\/p>\n Anytime I wonder if I\u2019m using the right word, I ask myself if there are missing letters, and this helps me remember whether I should use the apostrophe version or not.<\/p>\n To\/Too\/Two<\/strong><\/p>\n To<\/strong> indicates direction or place. It\u2019s also part of infinitives in English: to see, to go, to run.*<\/p>\n Too<\/strong> indicates a greater degree of something or an addition. You can remember this because it has an additional<\/em> O.<\/p>\n Two<\/strong> is the spelling-out of the numeral 2.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n * Unlike some languages, English infinitives appear as two words, but they function as one. This is why grammar sticklers will scold you for \u201csplitting infinitives,\u201d or putting words in between the two parts of the infinitive.<\/p>\n Split Infinitive: I want to<\/em><\/strong> definitely see<\/em><\/strong> that movie.<\/p>\n Intact Infinitive: I definitely want to see<\/em><\/strong> that movie.<\/p>\n Shannon Naylor is the post-graduate teaching intern for the CTL.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" by Shannon Naylor Its\/It\u2019s || Your\/You\u2019re || Their\/They\u2019re The trick to getting these words right is to remember when to use the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[63,109],"tags":[67,162,92,69,125],"class_list":["post-1931","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-clarity","category-writeherewritenowwriteon","tag-apostrophe","tag-contraction","tag-editing","tag-possessive","tag-word-choice"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5DI6r-v9","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/content.principia.edu\/teaching-excellence\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1931","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/content.principia.edu\/teaching-excellence\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/content.principia.edu\/teaching-excellence\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/content.principia.edu\/teaching-excellence\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/content.principia.edu\/teaching-excellence\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1931"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/content.principia.edu\/teaching-excellence\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1931\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1934,"href":"http:\/\/content.principia.edu\/teaching-excellence\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1931\/revisions\/1934"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/content.principia.edu\/teaching-excellence\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1931"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/content.principia.edu\/teaching-excellence\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1931"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/content.principia.edu\/teaching-excellence\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1931"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n\n
\n Pronoun<\/em><\/td>\n Possessive<\/em><\/td>\n Contraction<\/em><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \n It<\/td>\n Its<\/td>\n It\u2019s<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \n You<\/td>\n Your<\/td>\n You\u2019re<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \n They<\/td>\n Their<\/td>\n They\u2019re<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \n <\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \n There<\/td>\n \u201cThere\u201d is another commonly confused word, but it doesn\u2019t have anything to do with the pronoun \u201cthey.\u201d Use \u201cthere\u201d when indicating a place or location.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n \n\n
\n Word<\/td>\n Part of Speech<\/td>\n Example<\/em><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \n To<\/td>\n Preposition<\/td>\n I went to the grocery store.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \n Too<\/td>\n Adverb<\/td>\n I bought too many groceries.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \n Two<\/td>\n Number<\/td>\n I made two trips between the car and fridge.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n