“It’s” means “it is”, whereas “its” signifies ownership. The apostrophe only shows ownership when it’s used with any word that isn’t it. It’s confusing sometimes, but it should be taught to students from a young age, so it shouldn’t be a problem, should it?
I, for one, struggle greatly with getting it’s/its correctly, and I have been corrected for it many times by helpful commenters. Seriously, I mean it. I type these blog posts up so fast and only proofread them maybe once or twice, of course mistakes are going to get through. It’s inevitable. Posting a comment like “you spelled dysfunction wrong” isn’t going to hurt my feelings or anything.
Point out mistakes, I’ll correct them. Or ignore it and leave it in it’s original state for laughs (oh meta humor). And besides, let us be honest here, somebody who actually gets offended or hurt from having a spelling mistake pointed out to them likely has a whole host of issues beyond typing too fast sometimes.
In regards to it’s/its, well… I have an excuse as to why I make that mistake more often than anything else!
See, I was originally taught way back in grade school that “it’s” is only used to mean “it is”. “Its” being strictly for showing possession.
However, in grades four and five, I was taught that “it’s” shows possession AND means “it is”, the word “its” not appearing anywhere in the english language. Apparently.
In grade six I was taught the correct way again, but then the wrong way, then the right way, then the wrong way…
Nearly every other year I was taught the complete opposite of the year before. Basically every time I got a new english (or language arts, remember LA? good times) teacher, they would teach me the exact opposite of the teacher before me, complete with spelling the “right” and “wrong” way to do it on the board in huge letters.
This is the reason why I screw up it’s/its all the time. My brain thinks that both of those words are wrong and correct every time I use them, which as you might imagine is extremely frustrating and confusing (hint: it is). I have to double check it’s/its every time I use them, sometimes I used them correctly and then “fix” them to be wrong, sometimes they were wrong and stay wrong, sometimes they’re wrong and I make them right, and on rare occasions they were right and stay right.
In all of those cases, whenever I use it’s/its, I have to stop every time and double check, just to make sure. It gets rather tedious after a while, considering how often those two words come up, but you kinda just get used to it, you know?
Of course, this does mean I probably have the stupidest language disability in the history of everything.
Lol, it’s okay.
Some of the spelling seen in trade chat. Now that is definately (sic) not okay.
Speaking of ‘definitely’. I have to think that one through every time. I always have to go de finite ly in my head sounding it out. It’s a weird hang up, I think.
Definitely is how “it is” spelled, I do believe. ^^
Great website by the way.
Helps my 73 mage hit 2k as arcane.
<3
Ah, and I was beat to it..
Dude, you totally spelled disfunctyon wrong.
Okay, not funny. It’s been a long day.
Funny you bring this up, though. I typed up a status and used “it’s” when I should have used “its”. I got all paranoid that someone was going to bring up the grammatical error. Then I realized that my friends aren’t WoW trolls, even if some of them are Grammar Rangers.
I’ve honestly never heard of grammar rangers before.
This concept is new and terrifying. Never point them this way, I suspect my grammar is even worse than my spelling.
Hardly my fault, says I, I can make as many grammar errors as I wish and just say that it is creative writing.
Grammar Rangers! comes from my ol’ Counter-Strike days. They were a force to be reckoned with.
Whenever apostrophes, commas, colons and semi-colons were used incorrectly, the corrections were abound! Spelling errors would earn their wrath even more so – and the more appalling the error, the more vicious their retalliation.
Fortunately, with the interwebs, the internet speak has made any of my grammatical errors seem like a breath of fresh air.
omgwtfbbqlollrn2rite
It drives me nuts when people get they’re, their, and there wrong.
I have to fight the urge to correct them each time.
It isn’t that difficult! >.>
I remember Language Arts. It was good times.
Do you remember CPU I, II & III
aka algebra, geometry and algebra 2
*sniffles* I miss those
I miss actually being good at math, once upon a time. High end algebra and calculus casually sodomized my brain.
Yes, even with my engineering degree, I now always spell Pi with an ‘e’ at the end. Mmmm…. pie…
this post made me want a specific icecream sandwich
They didn’t think grammer was important when I was in grade school ( Australian’s call it Primary school ) – My grammer is schocking. It’s getting better though – gradually fixing all my errors through sheer repeitition. I also apparently have pronouciation problems. Anythinks instead of anythings – and I have best seller aspirations. I may notice something wrong, but let he/she who spells perfectly cast the first stone.. and that certainly isn’t me
In that case, though I hate to be the one who points it out, it’s grammar
Alas the only reason I get it right is because I went to a grammar school. There really is no reason to have an A instead of an E but that’s the English language for you.
Throughout a lot of my schooling they never put much of an emphasis on grammar either, they just expected you to magically pick it up.
Point out grammer but not repeitition or pronouciation?
Pish posh, sir, hand over the swastika, you don’t deserve them anymore.
Writers don’t need to spell anything correctly. That is why we (are supposed to) have editors, yes?
As long as we can produce a sentence clearer than “afnreoo nufs illgotmecp whichait gool”, then we’re good!
Tell an editor that and she’ll slap you. Repeatedly. Lots and lots.
(I am one, and there’s few things more annoying than having to fix basic mistakes. Seriously, it’s grammar, not rocket science. Bloody writers.
Yes, an editor will slap you for simple spelling and grammatical errors; however, they will also slap you for forgetting to close a paranthetical.
yes, i fail
How about if you just typed “it is” from here on?
I do try to do this, but it takes even longer to do it that way. When I say my brain is seriously screwed up about this, I really do mean it.
I usually end up typing stupid shit like “Gerald it is beard” which is, of course, a horrendous sentence, but a part of my brain thinks it’s correct.
rediculous!
(uh, trade chat spelling of ‘ridiculous’ intentional, haha)
Oh hell yeah, that one too. Since there is no spell checker, I usually go with the old redonkulous spelling.
They also tend to teach you that the proper way to list multiple people, including yourself, is to list the other folks names first and end with yourself and using the pronoun “I.” As in: “My brother and I went to the store.” Or, “Steve, my brother, and I went to the store.”
That is correct only in a situation where you would use the pronoun “I” without the other people listed. “I went to the store” is correct. However, if you take the other people away and would use “me” then you should STILL use me.
“That isn’t good enough for Bob and I.” is completely wrong. You would never write “That isn’t good enough for I” unless you were trying to make fun of D&D metal band lyrics.
Or attempting to be a huge pompous ass.
Which I definitely like to do, so I shall stick with “This pie is not nearly good enough for I”, thank you very much!
Besides, you can’t shorten “I”. “I” takes a long time to pronounce, whereas you can shorten “me” to the point where it is barely a noise. You sound more important saying “I” than “me”.
I didn’t read this comment until after I made my Pi/Pie lameass joke.
Honest. Damn your pie references preceeding mine. DAMN THEM ALL TO HELL!
Reminds me of when I was doing primary teaching training. I managed to get the school bully on side and was surprised to receive a letter from him the week after my teaching round concluded.
I knew he wrote it and I knew he corrected it, multiple times… Why?
Because he would correct mistakes (correctly) then correct them again (incorrectly).
Whatever, fo some reason my schools stopped teaching grammar about the time I started school as a little tacker… Apparently it was better to make life long mistakes than bruise our self esteem when we were our most resiliient.
I like the irony of the title.
“I cannot use apostrophe is.”
“I cannot use [my friend] Apostrophe’s … [something or other].”
I agree that often a lot of things like this can get confusing. What makes them important in media such as this, where the only form of communication is in writing, is that not only can incorrect grammar be an impediment to understanding meaning, but it’s also the only way in which one can express personal attributes such as intelligence. You could be a genius, but if you write incompetently in a blog you won’t seem quite as smart anymore.
Fortunately, you are an excellent writer, Euripedes. Mistakes here and there are easy to overlook in an environment like this, where they are fairly rare.
I originally fought whether to simply have a silly title and have everything else correct, or to go balls deep and have every single instance of it’s/its used incorrectly throughout the entire blog post.
I opted instead to have the silly title and ONE it’s/its used incorrectly in the post, and point it out, so as to try and leave at least some people’s brains intact.
It would have been fun to write, but I suspect not too enjoyable to read.
Any linguist will tell you it’s silly, arbitrary, and largely meaningless. This is to say: regardless of your spelling, your readers are going to have sufficient competence to figure out what you meant, excepting perhaps a handful of highly contrived ambiguous cases.
Any grammar teacher will tell you it’s going to look sloppy and lose you the career of your dreams. i.e. Your would-be boss laughs at your pathetic pseudo-English scrawl and tosses your resumé into the reject pile.
Sadly, they’re both right.
There’s no use in reinforcing bad habits, just ’cause teh intarwebz don’t care.
Well the way i see it my friend is to just use “it’s” for both meanings.
It is clear that your tutors had clearly no idea what they where talking about so why would you feel contrived enough to get it right. If you are unsure about whether that is the correct term just use “it is” and that is that. At least that is what i do.
Pew pew
!!
“it’s”, “its” – I sez bugger it all, and just go with iss’tises.
Well of course you would say bugger it all, you carry a huge axe around everywhere. Nobody questions a huge guy with an axe, or really any instrument capable of cleaving flesh.
As a self declared cunning linguist.
All I can say is it’s posts like this that keep me coming back.
Whilst either use can be understood, the incorrect use slows me up for a small moment.
When I read
“but you can’t take it’s freedom” I do a little backflip in the brain and then drop the apostrophe.
I hate my teachers so much. That little brain blip you get? I get that every single damn time I use it’s/its.
I’d be writing a sentence, say, and my brain will be: “and so, this is why its gnuflrhgnkj it’s”.
HNNG. So frustrating.
Hmmm I am the daughter of an english professor. I wasn’t allow to abbreviate any words (in Australia it’s pretty common to abbreviate everything down) and got in serious trouble for saying “arvo” instead of afternoon. I could swear though. My dad had no problem with that, I guess.
But get your apostrophes wrong? That was a BIG DEAL.
It hurts me to see Photo’s and DVD’s used in signage. I see it all the time too.
I guess because I’m used to proof-reading my own work I actually mentally replace all use of “it’s” with the words “it is” as I read through. That sorts out 99% of the mistakes.
No problem swearing as long as it wasn’t abbreviated or spelled incorrectly.
But you just go ahead and try and abbreviate “asswipe” and he’ll make you repeat it until you get it right.
That would be the best dad ever.
There are times when the apostrophe-S plural is correct, though. Pluralizing single characters, abbreviations with internal punctuation, and probably some other niche cases.
Formal English is funny like that. One has to wonder the use of learning all these rules if most people don’t even know the difference.
All that probably means you had some of the dumbest teachers in history, actually.
I’d try to commiserate but sorry, I can’t. I’m just good at spelling (except for those double-letter words like ‘neccessarrrry’) and terribly proud of myself for doing it right without being a native English speaker. It might be because I had strict teachers when I was learning to spell (in both Romanian and English), but I think it’s more because I simply have a thing for grammar (called being a nazi, I know).
And, as weird as it sounds, I think the fact that my native language is NOT English helps a lot – even now I still read the letters (t-h-e-i-r) before I read the whole word, so it’s absolutely obvious that ‘their’, ‘they’re’ and ‘there’ are completely different words. No one has agreed with my theory so far, but I’m sticking with it.
Corrections can be somewhat annoying. Possibly the best thing to do in this instance is fix the mistake but delete the comment.
I think as blog readers we spend far too much of our time reading grammar arguments.
Deleting the comment also discourages people who Comment To Win The Internet.
There’s never too many grammar arguments. Especially if people actually learn from them…
(I know they probably don’t, but I still enjoy it.)
Damn, I lost the internet.
I can understand the confusion between “its” and “it’s”. They aren’t that far off, and given the general level of education these days (at least as displayed in trade chat) if that’s the only spelling mistake they make I’m impressed.
But seriously, “their” “there” and “they’re” are so much further apart, both in spelling and meaning, there is just no excuse to mix them up.
I would link again to this awesome post I read about “competency” …but you wrote it =)
Well, in much the same line as Delerius, I think the four most common errors in WoW are (in no particular order)…
4. They’re/There/Their
3. Your/You’re
2. It’s/Its
.
.
.
And what feels like the most common error in WoW…
Survey says…
1. Rogue/Rouge.
Poison in the makeup. I guess that’s been done before.
My 2 yen,
Akiosama
Euripedes, regardless of how you use the apostrophe, it really doesn’t matter. Why? Studies have shown that the human mind (at least when reading english) deciphers only the first and last letter of a word. This is a coping mechanism of the brain, as reading each letter in a word would become nigh on impossible to comprehend. For example:
“I lrnd to read ad rigt in the secnd grde”
Look again at that sentence – bet you read it like all the letters were present and spelling was correct. Although looking a LOT like trade chat, as long as the first and last letters are in the appropriate positions, the human mind will decipher it as:
“I learned to read and right in the second grade”
Thts my finl answr ad I’m stickng to it.
Farg!
Want to buy edit button.
Obviously, in second grade I didn’t learn to read and WRITE properly.
I fail and will now dejectedly leave the room.
that’s karma for mentioning my paranthesis.
True. Also, the two-by-four of life hitting me square in the face for attempting to correct a woman.
The comments to this post are so full of win. Every damn one of them.
I love you guys so much.