it's/is

[plin]

From another of my postings:


"Whether factual or not it's irrelevant."


It looks like "it's" can easily be replaced by "is" and the phrase would still be fine. If this is the case, how do we choose which is better? Thanks.

[Pete]

From another of my postings:


"Whether factual or not it's irrelevant."


It looks like "it's" can easily be replaced by "is" and the phrase would still be fine. If this is the case, how do we choose which is better? Thanks.
The sentences with it's or is would both be correct, but the meanings are different.

With "it's", there must be some previous statement to be an antecedent to "it"; the current sentence says that whether that first statement is factual or not, that first statement is irrelevant.

With "is", there is still some understood previous statement in the background, but the current sentence is saying that the question of whether it is factual or not is irrelevant. It isn't saying that the earlier statement is irrelevant.