It's

[Pottsy]

When people say ''It's raining'', what does the ''it'' refer to?

[Panic Button]

The weather of course.

It's obvious

[heathfield]

Believe it or not, in such a sentence the word 'it' actually has no meaning! The reason has do with the rules of the English language, where the verb 'to be' (I am, he is, she is, it is,...) requires a pronoun (I,he,she, it,...) before the verb is used in what's called an affirmative statement.

Having 'it' available is helpful, because when the pronoun 'it' and the verb 'is' change places, instead of a statement, we produce a question, i.e.,'Is it raining?'.

If we simply said 'Is raining', it could be an affirmative statement, or it could be a question. The inclusion of the meaningless word 'it', combined with the word order, helps clarify things..

[squarebear]

I suppose a similar thing would be "what time is it?". What time is what?

[sandmaster]

what is what?

[Quizmonster]

Grammarians call this a prop, empty or dummy 'it'. You also find it in reference to time, season, distance etc...It was morning...It was the summer of 1985...It's five miles to Southampton and so on.

[Irishlad74]

who put the who in the what now?

[chappie]

No, that's who put the bop in the bop de bop de bop.

[Ice.Maiden]

ROFL!!!!! You narnas!!!!

My answer to Pottsy's question is.....
It IS.

[Pottsy]

It's not, well not here anyway.

[north star]

Who makes these 'rules of the english language' heathfield?