# Alphabetical order rules for its, it's



## Denise L (May 19, 2008)

I am wondering if anyone has the rules for where apostrophes fall when you are alphabetizing words.

In particular,

*its*
*it's*

I thought it was *it's* first, since it is like "it is" and I thought that would come before *its*. But the teacher says *its* is first.

Just curious what the official rule is and what is says about how you treat an apostrophe.


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## DebBrown (May 19, 2008)

I don't know if Microsoft is the authority but when I sorted these words with Excel, this is the order in which they appeared:

its
it's
who's
whose

Does that help?

Deb


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## Denise L (May 19, 2008)

DebBrown said:


> I don't know if Microsoft is the authority but when I sorted these words with Excel, this is the order in which they appeared:
> 
> its
> it's
> ...



Thanks, Deb. I figured out what the correct order is, but I was curious as to how that rule was determined, or what the actual rule says.


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## rickandcindy23 (May 19, 2008)

Okay, so what are you asking?


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## MULTIZ321 (May 20, 2008)

Denise,

It's not a clear cut answer -
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collation


Richard


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