ENGLISH GRAMMAR

SHOULD YOU USE APOSTROPHES TO

MAKE PERSONAL PRONOUNS POSSESSIVE?

HERS/HER’S? THEIRS/THEIR’S? ITS/IT’S?

GRAMMAR REVOLUTION
Elizabeth O'Brien

At some point in our lives, I’m sure that we’ve all paused while writing hers, theirs, or its and, with our hand hovering over the s, wondered whether or not we should add an apostrophe.

The short answer is that you should never add an apostrophe to these possessive words. Would you like to know the long answer? Great! Let’s explore the issues involved so that you can write more confidently. Here we go!

Apostrophes & Possession

It’s true that one the main jobs of apostrophes is to show possession. We add them to nouns as well as indefinite pronouns in order to make the nouns and pronouns possessive.

However, there are some words that show possession all by themselves without the help of an apostrophe. I’m referring to possessive pronouns like hers, theirs, and its.

Personal Pronouns & Possessive Pronouns

While nouns and indefinite pronouns use apostrophes to become possessive, personal pronouns (me, you, he, she...) actually change into other words — possessive pronouns — in order to become possessive. And possessive pronouns don’t take apostrophes.
For example, we is a personal pronoun. Notice that we never say we’s to show possession of the personal pronoun we. We change the word completely to the possessive pronoun our or ours.

It’s easy to see that we don’t add apostrophes to certain personal pronouns like we, but things can get tricky when the possessive version of the pronoun ends in s as it does in the words hers, theirs, and its. We see that s in a possessive word staring us in the face, and we feel like it needs an apostrophe.

However, possessive pronouns already show possession, so adding an apostrophe would be unnecessary (and wrong). It would be sort of like buying and installing a webcam for your computer that already has a built-in camera.

Never add apostrophes to possessive pronouns.
These words already show possession, so they don’t need apostrophes.

Here’s a chart showing you the possessive versions of the personal pronouns. Note that none of them contains an apostrophe.

* Who isn’t a personal pronoun. It’s an interrogative pronoun and a relative pronoun, but I included it since many people are confused about the possessive word whose.

** https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/76337/its-as-a-possessive-pronoun 

It’s & Who’s

These two words are probably the most troublesome. It’s true that it’s and who’s are words with apostrophes, but these words don’t show possession. It’s is a contraction for the words it is. Who’s is a contraction for the words who is or who has.

• It’s raining! (It is raining!) Yes
• The dog ate its food. (its = possessive) Yes
• The dog ate it’s food. (The dog ate it is food.) No
• Who’s at the door? (Who is at the door?) Yes
• Whose coat is this? (whose = possessive) Yes
• Who’s coat is this? (Who is rain coat is this?) No

Adapted from: https://www.english-grammar-revolution.com/personal-pronouns.html. Accessed on August 27, 2021.