What about similar oddities in English?
(This question is inspired by this comic by https://www.exocomics.com/193/ (link found by BunScientist@lemmy.zip))
Edit: it's to its in the title. Damn autocorrect.
this post was submitted on 23 Sep 2025
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It's "its," by the way.
This is the grammar thing I fuck up the most, and I don't call people on it because I'm pretty sure I don't know how it works. Autocorrect changes it & I just say "oh, whoops", and it still looks wrong...
it's means "it is". It is really not difficult, just pretend you are Data and swear off contractions.
Ah, thanks for the reminder to look through some TNG again. Data is such a great character and fills the role of the outsider looking in perfectly.
Plus he's a sex toy, which is cool. If peak Denise Crosby wanted to find out if I was fully functional, I might bust a hydraulic hose right there.
I think the contraction vs possesive thing messes with me, and my brain can never settle on what goes where when, how, or why...
Just try changing it to "it is". If the sentence still makes sense, it's "it's". Otherwise it's "its".
Here's a shortcut: test if you could drop "his" into the same spot and have it make sense. (And of course you'd never write hi's or his's.) If "his" would work, "its" would work.
My keyboard is very keen on completing "it's" regardless of context. I imagine this is the case for most people, since usually I see "it's" when "its" would be correct.
I also think it's difficult to know that "it's" is wrong to use because it feels like it follows the common apostrophe for possession rule:
"Australia's capital is Canberra" -> "Australia is the largest country in Oceania. It's capital is Canberra." (wrong, but intuitive)