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Itsy Bitsy Its and Itses and Itises...
Nirvana
aka BUBBA ` ` South Carolina, USA Veteran
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!
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!
0
Comments
"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.
(ouch, it's actually painful to write like that!)
Palzang
Palzang
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.
Obviously.
Palzang
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
I know this is way off topic, but has anybody told you how much you look like Hugh Laurie? :wtf:
But yeah I think it's (whew did it) partly just laziness and ignorance on my part!
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."
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 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
I make enough gaffes trying hard not to. Those who throw in the towel before they even get started deserve only short shrift, IMO.
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.
Things become humorous, though, when phrased sloppily. Some examples:
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:
I got to laughin so hard I purt near couldn't stop. But anyway....the cowboys use "its'a a lot.
lol
<.<
In my defence, English is my second language. =(
Well, I'll make an effort to remember these.