“It’s” stands for “It is”

Back when I was four-years-old, I remember watching an episode of The Electric Company that explained how apostrophes worked. The short cartoon involved two words, a bulldozer, and a crane. In the cartoon, two words were pushed together, like DO and NOT. Eventually they would get pushed together so tightly that the lettter “O” would disintegrate, leaving DON(pile of rubble)T. A crane would then pick up a piece of the “O” that looked like an apostrophe, and hang it in the air, spelling “DON’T”. The idea, which I was able to comprehend at the age of four, was that the aspostrophe replaces missing letters.

That was a long-winded way of stating that if you are trying to say “IT IS”, you should use “IT’S”, as in, “IT’S included with your Salad Bar.” Do I point this out when people use the incorrect form of the word when they e-mail me? No. Do I point it out when a restaurant has had professional signs created incorrectly? You bet.

My work is never done.