Who’s vs. Whose
There’s a battle going on in the world of words, and heaven only knows who’s going to win! Everywhere I go, I see “who’s” being used as a possessive — I don’t know why; it’s just plain silly.
Actually, I have a pretty good guess about why it’s happening. People don’t understand apostrophes. I’ve talked about apostrophes before. The rules are not that complicated. An apostrophe attached to a noun or pronoun indicates either that something is missing, or that something is owned. Except whe you are dealing with the personal pronouns and the indefinite pronouns.
Personal pronouns have a possessive form: my, mine, your, yours, his, hers, its, our, ours, their, theirs. So does the indefinite pronoun: whose.
The only correct way to indicate possession with a pronoun is to use its possessive form.
- His ball is red.
- Her book is torn.
- The bus lost its bumper.
- Whose book is that?
The apostrophe is used to show that something is missing — usually a few letters from a verb like is, has, have, or had.
- It’s time for lunch. (It is…)
- He’s bought the car. (He has…)
- We’ve been to Hawai’i. (We have…)
- She’d been ill. (She had…)
- Who’s going to the movie? (Who is…)
- I’m happy today. (I am…)
I know it’s hard to believe, but it really is that simple. Whose means some indefinite person owns something. Who’s means what indefinite person is acting or being acted on by whatever verb follows … who is.
Hope that helps clear up the confusion, so that I can stop seeing calendars that say “Can you guess who’s car this is?”