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Itsy Bitsy Its and Itses and Itises...

NirvanaNirvana aka BUBBA   `     `  South Carolina, USA Veteran
edited December 2010 in Arts & Writings
Why cannot a lot of otherwise good writers simply remember two things:

1) The Possessive form of the word "IT" is spelled without an apostrophe: The bank raised its interest rates; The dog wagged its tail; the bomb missed its target by a mile!

2) The apostrophe is used only in the event a contraction is being made of the words:
a) It Is
b) It Has

Of the two, though, I'd rather see the comma left out than hear about the Itsses. Sounds so sneaky and conniving!

Comments

  • JeffreyJeffrey Veteran
    edited April 2010
    it's counterintuitive that the apostrophe isn't the posessive in my opinion. I didn't know that.
  • NirvanaNirvana aka BUBBA   `     `   South Carolina, USA Veteran
    edited April 2010
    Another pet peeve I have is when people correct you for using proper English, such as:

    "I feel so bad about Elise's cat getting run over."

    "You mean you feel badly about it," Tom will say.

    Wrong. It's that part of speech I learned in sixth-grade, called the Predicate Adjective. There's no adverb involved. My sense of touch is not impaired so that my feelings are numbed.

    Would you say, "the Rose smelled so well?" No, the rose smells good.

    Adverbs have to do with time place and modalities of action verbs, not feeling or being verbs.

    Around where I live if you ask people how they feel, they tend to answer "Good." I've made a joke of it and say "I know you're good, but how do you feel?"

    Ah, it's a losing battle. Not unlike everyone calling the simple slash a backslash. If you actually use the backslash on the website they tell you about on the radio, you won't get where they say they want you to go.
  • JeffreyJeffrey Veteran
    edited April 2010
    choose your battles
  • PalzangPalzang Veteran
    edited April 2010
    Well, it's obviously because of "there" ignorance. Too many "hamburger's"!

    (ouch, it's actually painful to write like that!)

    Palzang
  • fivebellsfivebells Veteran
    edited April 2010
    Huh, I didn't know that "it's" is also a contraction of "it has." Can someone give me an example, please?
  • edited April 2010
    it's bin rainin like a cock outsyde
  • PalzangPalzang Veteran
    edited April 2010
    (I don't know if I should ask this or not, but...) Exactly how does a cock rain? :o

    Palzang
  • RichardHRichardH Veteran
    edited April 2010
    Roosters sometimes bring a little burst of sunshower. It appears to emerge from the air above them, and has about a four foot radius. You have obviously never lived on a farm.


    Re: the O.P. I didnt realize that giving the possessive "its" an apostrophe was wrong, and apologize for making this mistake over and over again. Its one of my ongoing faux paws along with some reelly bad spelling.
  • PalzangPalzang Veteran
    edited April 2010
    You have obviously never lived on a farm.

    Obviously.

    Palzang
  • NirvanaNirvana aka BUBBA   `     `   South Carolina, USA Veteran
    edited December 2010
    See page-turn from pages 7 to 8 or the top of page 3. "The pronominal possessives hers, its, theirs, yours, and oneself have no apostrophe."

    Oi my noives!

    It's not been too long since this matter has raised its silly head, I trust.

    1) The Possessive form of the word "IT" is spelled without an apostrophe: The bank raised its interest rates; The dog wagged its tail; the bomb missed its target by a mile!

    2) The apostrophe is used only in the event a contraction is being made of the words:
    a) It Is
    b) It Has
  • NirvanaNirvana aka BUBBA   `     `   South Carolina, USA Veteran
    edited December 2010
    Please Forgive!
  • edited December 2010
    Nirvana:
    I know this is way off topic, but has anybody told you how much you look like Hugh Laurie? :wtf:
  • JeffreyJeffrey Veteran
    edited December 2010
    I have been spelling sound alike words wrong for some time now. I am not sure if it is laziness on my part or 'bad habits'? Or perhaps a cognitive problem of another sort. I have read some of the medications sometimes affect spelling and definitely affect other areas of cognition.

    But yeah I think it's (whew did it) partly just laziness and ignorance on my part!
  • genkakugenkaku Northampton, Mass. U.S.A. Veteran
    edited December 2010
    "It's" and its "don't" make me wobble.

    But "ninety" and "nineteen" always make me pause.

    And I always hated it when some teacher or parent would say when I was young, "If you don't know how to spell it or you don't know what it means, look it up in the dictionary."
  • NirvanaNirvana aka BUBBA   `     `   South Carolina, USA Veteran
    edited December 2010
    I always hated it when some teacher or parent would say when I was young, "If you don't know how to spell it or you don't know what it means, look it up in the dictionary."

    Why, pray tell? This advice is even more apt today when dictionaries are so easily available for our computers and online.

    I have a very nice feature on my Mac. You simply select a word and hold down the control button and click on the selected word, and a menu is dropped down to select from:
    Search in Spotlight
    Search in Google

    Look Up in Dictionary

    Cut
    Copy
    Paste

    Spelling and Grammar
    Substitutions
    Transformations
    Font
    Speech
    Paragraph Direction

    Block this ad
    Block an ad on this page...
    Don't run on this domain...

    Inspect Element
  • JeffreyJeffrey Veteran
    edited December 2010
    Cyborg transformation incomplete :(
  • NirvanaNirvana aka BUBBA   `     `   South Carolina, USA Veteran
    edited December 2010
    Still, the fact remains that there is some duty to flesh out our thoughts clearly before we put them into writing if we intend to be taken seriously. On those occasions when we don't, it's an entirely different matter. Slovenly habits make for sloppy thinking, which makes for unreliable testimony and bad judgment.

    I make enough gaffes trying hard not to. Those who throw in the towel before they even get started deserve only short shrift, IMO.
  • edited December 2010
    Palzang wrote: »
    (I don't know if I should ask this or not, but...) Exactly how does a cock rain? :o

    Palzang

    :lol: It does not, the tiny path in it that allows excess water to flow out, other wise, flood within:p
  • federicafederica Seeker of the clear blue sky... Its better to remain silent and be thought a fool, than to speak out and remove all doubt Moderator
    edited December 2010
    Pet peeve?

    Malapropisms*.

    These are all genuine....

    He was knocked inconscience (instead of 'unconscious').

    My opinion is that he should tow the line (instead of 'toe').

    My husband is a cereal cheater (Instead of Serial').

    Actually this means he pretends to eat cornflakes but they're actually wheetos...!)

    The list is unfortunately, far too long.

    George Bush is guilty of far too many to list.....:D







    *The word 'Malapropism' is derived from the character Mrs. Malaprop in Sheridan's Play, 'The Rivals'. The name 'Malaprop' itself, is taken from the French mal à propos, (literally, 'ill-suited'), which describes the use of an existing word used in an incorrect manner.
  • NirvanaNirvana aka BUBBA   `     `   South Carolina, USA Veteran
    edited December 2010
    Yea, malapropisms, too. My favorite example was almost inculcated into/out of me as a small child by the Dominican nuns at my Roman Catholic grade school. In the Act of Contrition, which began "O my God, I am heartily sorry for having offended Thee..." the nuns naturally had to do battle with the tendency of little mouths to turn the three-syllable "heartily" into the two-syllable "hardly." :lol:

    Things become humorous, though, when phrased sloppily. Some examples:
    Lincoln wrote the Gettysburg Address while traveling from Washington to Gettysburg on the back of an envelope.

    The bride was wearing a lace gown that fell to the floor as she walked down the aisle.

    The congressman stayed after the meeting and discussed the high cost of living with several women.

    Of course, when we express ourselves too sloppily we are bound to be misunderstood (either that or our intelligence).


    Some grammatical rules, however, are just silly —such as not ending a sentence with a preposition. Recall Winston Churchill's retort to that?: “This is the sort of English up with which I will not put.”
    I once saw a sentence that ended in seven prepositions. It was quite elegant, really. I only recall the sentence ending in five prepositions:
    It was asking about how long the man who sold you his house was in jail for:
    How long is that man whose mortgage you're trying to get out from under in for?
  • edited December 2010
    there is a cowboy form also. A chicano friend of mine named Bob went out and got drunk then got beat up by a couple of cowboys. We knew he was kind of combative normally anyway so my other friend said "Well u know what probably happened don't you?" So I said what? So she said "A couple of old cowboys went past him in the lobby and said "Do ya think its'a raining? And he probably said "IRANIAN" I AINT NO IRANAN!" and so the fight was on with Bob throwing the first punch.

    I got to laughin so hard I purt near couldn't stop. But anyway....the cowboys use "its'a a lot.

    lol
  • ShiftPlusOneShiftPlusOne Veteran
    edited December 2010
    >.>

    <.<

    In my defence, English is my second language. =(
    Well, I'll make an effort to remember these.
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