Because, frankly, the contradictory usage of "its" makes it impossible to say ANY general usage is correct; whichever general rule one affirms is contradicted, either by "its" or by the possessive form of every single other noun that does not end in "s."

True, a given usage can only be considered correct when generally adopted (the history of both "its" and usage panels illustrates that well.) With regard to effective communication, however, I do not believe dropping possessive apostrophes in general impairs communication any more than does dropping them in a single case.


The "noun ending in 's'" qualifier is a standard and generally known rule for possessives: "'S" is not added to possessive forms of words ending in "s" because it looks unnatural and suggests an ambiguous pronunciation (ironically, if possessives were still formed in the full "es" this would be a non-issue, and one could write "the doges paw" as easily as "the octopuses tentacle," though there would like be a convention that forbade writing "the mulees hoof.") Hence if I had meant "the ignorance of peoples" I would have written "peoples' ignorance" just as is normally done. It is hardly fair to suggest my meaning is ambiguous and therefore unacceptable because it relies on a rule that happens to be the CURRENT one for the possessive of nouns ending in "s."


Actually, I agree context clarifies meaning equally well for "it's/its" and other pro/nouns--and there's the rub. There are but two reasonable bases for affirming "its:"

1) Using apostrophe+"s" creates ambiguous meanings. I do not happen to agree, but it is no more or less likely for "it" than for any other noun or pronoun, so the usage--whatever we decide that is--should be standard in all cases.

2) An apostrophe in the possessive "its" is, unlike the contraction "it's," superfluous because no letters are elided. Again, not strictly true on a historical basis, but generally regarded as such now; however and also once again, the same is as true for all nouns and pronouns as for "its," so the usage--whatever we decide that is--should be standard in all cases.

The usage of "its" is a settled matter; I am simply attempting to observe a consistent standard. More to the point, I am consciously trying to AVOID the very thing you allege: Adopting arbitrary standards solely on the whim of what suits us at the time. I would be equally happy to revert to apostrophe+"s" for "it" along with all other nouns (in fact, I would prefer it for the historical reasons already stated,) but using one standard for one word and a different one for all others, for no other reason than personal taste, is wholly arbitrary and untenable. Accept that and we might as well accept "ghoti" as an acceptable spelling of "fish" and let people spell every word and construct every sentence however they please with no regard for whether it makes sense to anyone else.