Apostrophe or no?

March 7, 2005 12:57 PM

In the phrase "I'm going to milk this for all it's worth," which is it? Its or it's? (I.e., apostrophe or no apostrophe?)

A case could be made for either: "for all that it is worth," or "for all the worth that it possesses." This has been bugging me for months. I lean toward an apostrophe, but I look to MeFi for consensus, or at least stimulating discussion. (Please note, this is not the same as "for what it's worth," which definitely gets an apostrophe.)

posted by goatdog to writing & language (33 comments total)

You are not trying to get the worth that belongs to 'this', simply trying to get worth equal to 'this'. Therefore 'it's' with an apostrophe is correct.
posted by KS at 1:02 PM on March 7, 2005

Disagree with KS, agree with goatdog. It's ambiguous: could be either possessive (its worth) or contraction (it's worth).
posted by scratch at 1:06 PM on March 7, 2005

Sorry, my example was missing a word. "I'm going to milk this thing [or other noun] for all it's worth."
posted by goatdog at 1:06 PM on March 7, 2005

It's a contraction. Consider the source of the metaphor: milking a cow. A cow will generally have a fixed price, and it should be possible to coerce enough milk out of the cow to match that price, or all that the cow is worth.

Consider the alternative: one cannot milk the cow for its possessive worth, since cows generally do not own property.
posted by DrJohnEvans at 1:07 PM on March 7, 2005

Contraction, I think. "I'm going to sue her for all she's worth" is better than "I'm going to sue her for all her worth", at least to my ears.
posted by GeekAnimator at 1:18 PM on March 7, 2005

No, but a cow does have "worth". Doesn't it come from the belief that you can "milk something dry", that there is a finite "worth" you can extract from it?

I think it's one of those rare cases where both versions mean exactly the same thing and are both equally correct. I've always used the apostrophe, though.
posted by mkultra at 1:18 PM on March 7, 2005

I don't see how it's _different_ from "for what it's worth". It's always seemed to me that it's two different usages of the exact same sense of "worth".

I see how you _could_ take it the other way, but the word "worth" is already used commonly with the first sense in other places like "for what it's worth/sue her for all she's worth/etc". Occam's Razor.
posted by LairBob at 1:21 PM on March 7, 2005

Dr. John, cows have milk. They own it, more less, until the big milk machines take it. The milk has value. Therefore, for you can milk a cow for the equivalent of its monetary value as meat, as a breeder, or, as in your example, for the value of its milk.

In any case, we are not only talking about non-monetary worth here, we are also talking about figurative milking.

I think this can go either way, but I would say that in American English, it is not idiomatic and sounds a bit odd to use "milk it for all its worth" where the "worth" is a noun and the "its" is possessive. The noun would be more likely to be intended if you used an "of": "milk it for all of its worth" would be a better and clearer way to write it. But "worth" as an adjective sounds and feels better.
posted by Mo Nickels at 1:21 PM on March 7, 2005

Geekanimator has found the proper analogous case: "I'm going to sue her for all she's worth" is better than "I'm going to sue her for all her worth", at least to my ears.

Have you ever heard/said the latter?
posted by nobody at 1:29 PM on March 7, 2005

its
based on the fact; this is a hope that when you have “milked it dry”, the value you received from it is greater than “=.”
posted by thomcatspike at 1:46 PM on March 7, 2005

Contraction.

Y'all are over-analyzing the importance of the cow in this metaphor. As GeekAnimator demonstrates, the "its" construction doesn't carry well into other analogous euphemisms.
posted by me3dia at 1:49 PM on March 7, 2005

I'm an editor. If I saw "its" in this context, I would insert the apostrophe and fight for it tooth and nail.
posted by jennyjenny at 1:51 PM on March 7, 2005

Linguists discussing the issue back in 1997.
posted by pardonyou? at 1:51 PM on March 7, 2005

But is "for all her worth" wrong, or just unusual?
posted by smackfu at 1:52 PM on March 7, 2005

me3dia, so if a cow is worth a 100$, I'm going to stop milking it when I receive 100$ worth of milk?
Thought milking it dry, means receiving every cent out of it which is why I voted possessive, its worth.
posted by thomcatspike at 1:55 PM on March 7, 2005

I, for one, plan to start using 'its', if only because it'll drive pedants and editors insane.
posted by Eamon at 1:58 PM on March 7, 2005

I'm an editor. If I saw "its" in this context, I would insert the apostrophe and fight for it tooth and nail.

You clearly feel strongly about it? But what is your reasoning.

It makes sense to me both ways:

...milk it for all of ITS worth. < -- its as a possessive pronoun (i.e. the cow's worth). possessive pronouns don't contail apostrophes.br>
...milk it for all IT'S worth < -- it's as a contraction for it is. the sentence makes sense this way.br>
So since both work, why fight tooth and nail for the second one? I don't get it.
posted by grumblebee at 2:10 PM on March 7, 2005

LairBob, if one said "for what its worth" (possessive, no apostrophe), one would clearly be wrong, which is why I pointed it out. I was anticipating hordes of links to punctuation sites using that as an example.

Thanks for the good (and continuing) answers. I'm going to go find a glass of milk now.
posted by goatdog at 2:17 PM on March 7, 2005

Since the analogy is to milking a cow, I think "its" works better since it's what you'd use if you said "milk it for all its milk." That the usage of "worth" in "what it's worth" is today much more common than is its other grammatical sense is, I think, the only reason the apostrophe'd version looks better to some people. It probably wasn't so when that phrase was coined. So saying "milk it for all it's worth" is, like, showing your identification with all the hip youngsters who've never been anywhere near a cow, while saying "its worth" shows a more sophisticated appreciation of the subtleties of grammar. Both could be useful, but if you're using a phrase like "milk it for all its worth," I bet you'd have better luck going for the latter.
posted by sfenders at 2:59 PM on March 7, 2005

"For all her worth" is not incorrect, though it does come across as a bit dated or an overly formal construction, especially for a folksy idiom.

P.S. My real advice is to avoid the cliché.
posted by desuetude at 3:16 PM on March 7, 2005

Sure, I understand, goatdog--I think the big issue here is whether you think the phrase needs to be looked at just in and of itself, or in the context of other very similar phrases.

If you focus on the phrase in a linguistic vacuum, it's pretty hard to mount a good case against the possessive "its". Without strong etymological evidence one way or the other, how can you argue with an assertion like sfenders', which is purely suppositional?

If you look at the phrase in a larger context, though, I think that's where a lot of the rest of us have a hard time thinking it's anything but "it's". You cited one counter-example where it can only be "it's worth" in your question, and people like GeekAnimator have pointed out others.

Given those other, much clearer, cases, it's hard to see how _one_ usage with the possessive "its" might have evolved all on its own--even if it followed sfenders' logic--but that somehow a very similar, but different, usage evolved in every other case. It just doesn't seem very likely at all.
posted by LairBob at 3:21 PM on March 7, 2005

Etymological evidence? bah, who needs evidence. Anyway, via google:

"prove its worth" (which is very common)
"A Woman's Worth" (by Alicia Keys)
"doubt its worth" (which is hard to search for since you get so many hits for people who really mean "it's", but is still sort of current.)
"the worth of a dollar" (or indeed of various other nouns.)
"a busines selling at 80% of its worth..."
"the value of money is based on our perception of its worth."
"You’d never dream of arbitrarily assigning a sale price to your home without having some idea of its worth."
"...forcing Enron to sell its once-priceless trading book for a fraction of its worth."

I guess "it's worth" leads "its worth" 10-1 or so, but there's no doubt that things can still have a worth, as well as be worth something.
posted by sfenders at 4:18 PM on March 7, 2005

American Heritage Dictionary says for all (one) is worth. The (one) can be "it," which means the contraction version is correct.
posted by grouse at 4:30 PM on March 7, 2005

the googlefight seems pretty damn sure of itself, but Dr John has me leaning the other way.
posted by nomad at 5:02 PM on March 7, 2005

I would fight for "it's" because I think the more common perception of "for all it's worth" is that of "it is," for the reason that GeekAnimator cites above. (One would not say "for all her worth.")

And because this is the more common perception of the phrase, "its" is more likely to be read as a grammatical mistake by people who are not looking at the phrase as closely as we are.

In short, yeah, both are grammatically correct. But "it's" is less likely to involve you in a lengthy justification of the lack of apostrophe, such as the one we are engaging in now.

(I love this.)
posted by jennyjenny at 5:06 PM on March 7, 2005

Does anyone know if a Googlefight is worth a damn here, given Google ignores punctuation? And no, I'm not just asking because the correct answer is "it's". Even if Google were perfect at this, you're still polling an electorate that's BRB on AIM right now. k thx by
posted by yerfatma at 5:10 PM on March 7, 2005

That googlefight page doesn't seem to work for any phrases with the word "it's". Weird. It works for other words with apostrophes.

But anyway, my research into the depths of google tells me that "For all its worth" is more common in Britain, and "for all it's worth" in the USA. You can tell by the fact that usage of each is correlated with British vs. American spellings.
posted by sfenders at 6:22 PM on March 7, 2005

It's "it's."

(Or, for our Commonwealth friends: It's 'it's'.)
posted by mono blanco at 6:55 PM on March 7, 2005

"For all it's worth" is ambiguous; you could make a case for "its" there, although it's a poor one.

"For what it's worth" is not ambiguous, it only works as a contraction of "For what it is worth."
posted by mediareport at 9:57 PM on March 7, 2005

(Duh, I don't know why I added that second sentence at the last minute.)
posted by mediareport at 10:00 PM on March 7, 2005

grumblebee and others: The point is not whether a construction "makes sense," ie can be defended from a logical/philosphical point of view, but whether it's part of the English language, ie is actually used by native speakers. Lots of possible constructions "make sense" but aren't used (and lots of ones that are used don't "make sense," eg "slow up" and "slow down" mean the same thing). In this case, there's no way to tell which construction is being used from the phrase itself, because "its" and "it's" sound identical, but parallel phrases like "for all she's worth" clinch the matter. The fact that "for all her worth" is logical and may actually be used in certain situations is irrelevant; the parallel to "I'm going to milk this for all it's worth" is "I'm going to milk her for all she's worth," so "it's" is correct, end of story.
posted by languagehat at 7:30 AM on March 8, 2005

languagehat, to paraphrase: "What matters is not logic, but usage. That 'its' may actually be used is irrelevant, logic dictates 'it's'."

As for usage... "for all his worth" gets 990 hits on google. "Milk this for all it's worth" gets 865. "Milk it for all it's worth" gets 4996, but "all his worth" gets 4200. And "Milk it for all its worth" gets 4750. "All his worth" is relatively a lot more popular compared to its feminine equivalent than "All he's worth" is to its by a large margin. That agrees with my feeling that "all she's worth" is more of a cliché than "all he's worth". Which means that both of their relationships to "for all its worth" could be more complex than you imply. The popularity of parallel phrases like "for what it's worth" and "all she's worth" suggests to me that "it's" will probably win out over "its" if the phrase continues to evolve, but what meagre evidence we have suggests that it is yet far from universally decided.
posted by sfenders at 9:46 AM on March 8, 2005

So now we're gonna trust as the authority on language the search engine that can't even spell googol correctly?
posted by DrJohnEvans at 6:34 PM on March 8, 2005