Contractions – When Can’t ‘It is’ Be Shortened to ‘It’s’?

apostrophecontractionsformality

I have noticed that in some cases people write it is while in others it's. And in some cases you just cannot write it's.

  • Is that your book over there? Maybe it is.

  • It's a beautiful flower. Yes, it is, indeed.

In both these examples you can't write it's because it will sound strange. It may not only concern it is.

Is there a rule for this?

Best Answer

Contractions can be used in any position in a sentence; however, homophone contractions such as "it's" and "they're" sound better when followed by another word or phrase. The reason is that the sounds of "its" and "it's" and "they're" and "they are" are so similar that they can be confusing unless they are used with the context of an additional word. For example:

Incorrect: "It is what it's."

Correct: "It is what it is looking like."

Correct: "It is what it is."

Source: End of sentence contractions.

Also, you might want to check the answers to a similar question posted on EL&U.

Grammar Girl has an interesting write-up on this topic. This paragraph seems particularly important.

The Cambridge Grammar notes that in addition to being available whenever a speaker wants to stress a word for emphasis, the strong form of a word is required in a handful of specific grammatical situations. In particular, it states that prepositions are stressed when they are the last element in a prepositional phrase, and auxiliary verbs when they are the last element in a verb phrase. For example, the preposition “to” has a weak form that sounds like “tuh.” It’s OK to use the weak form in a phrase like “We went to [“tuh”] the movies,” but not in a question like “Fenster is the person you should talk to.” It just sounds funny to say “Fenster is the person you should talk tuh.” For examples with auxiliary verbs, we have “I’m smarter than you are,” and “the one where I am,” with the strong forms “are” and “am.” 

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