grammar | ELIZABETH NORWOOD

GRAMMAR TIP – It’s vs. Its

By Liz on June 20, 2013

courtesy itsiticecream.com

Ok, folks.

It’s time to have a chat about IT’S and ITS.

And the difference between them.

Because if I had a nickel for every time someone used “it’s” when they were supposed to use “its” I’d have…well, a lot of nickels.

IT’S is a contraction of “it is” or “it has.”

It’s so hard to know how to spell things sometimes.

It’s been a long time since I rode a bike.

A good way to test whether or not you need an apostrophe is if you can replace it’s with “it is” or “it has.”

It is so hard to know how to spell things sometimes.

It has been a long time since I rode a bike.

ITS is a possessive pronoun meaning “belonging to it.”

The dog buried its bone in the yard.

One of the main reasons we get confused with these two 3-letter words is we tend to associate possessives with apostrophes.

That is Bobby’s baseball bat.

The family’s trip to Disneyland was fun.

So, by gummit, when we’re talking our dog’s bone, we so badly want to add an apostrophe.

But please resist the urge.

Because IT’S just not right.

My formal training is as a linguist, not an English teacher, so I know that language is a fluid thing. What is considered incorrect can become correct through a critical mass of mainstream usage. But there are just certain “wrongs” that I’d hate to see gain enough traction to become “right”.

Are you guilty of using any of these? Do you think we should love ‘em (accept these transgressions and let them creep into our textbooks) or leave ‘em?

There’s Trouble in Them Thar Words

In the English language, many words with different meanings and spellings can prove vexing because they are pronounced the exact same way.

Case in point: the homonymous trio there/their/they’re.

See if you can spot the errors in the sentence that follows.

There are many people who think their smart, but often they’re spelling is suspect.

You guessed it. There are many people who think they’re smart, but often their spelling is suspect.

Some people truly do not grasp the difference in meaning between these three words. However, more often they just don’t take the time – in our culture of hyper speed – to figure out the correct usage. Esp in txts. Or if you allow auto fill free rein. Even as I write this post, my auto fill is short-circuiting over our vexing trio.

When writing in your daily life, whether crafting presentations or shooting quick emails, you might have a feeling that you’re choosing the rightish word. But it always pays to be sure – your credibility could be at stake.

It doesn’t have to be that tricky. Let me show you…

They’re is the most straightforward, but seems to cause the most confusion. It is simply a contraction of they + are. Did you see Mike’s shoes? They’re so cool.
Their indicates the third person plural possessive adjective. You use it to indicate something belongs to them. The students brought their lunches to school every day.
Everything else falls under the there umbrella. It can be an adverb (She sat there for two hours.), a pronoun (There is no reason to get frustrated with all of these words.), an adjective (That car there sure is a beaut.), a noun (You can’t get there from here.) or an interjection (There! I finally figured it out!)

If that’s too much information to muck around with, I offer you a handy mnemonic haiku.

Their belongs to them

They’re is just short for they are

Otherwise, it’s there.

There – is that clear?

love ‘em or leave ‘em

By Liz on July 27, 2012

CURTAINS for WHOM

Most of my love ‘em or leave ‘em posts are dedicated to common grammatical errors that I’d hate to see gain enough traction to become “right”.

That is, I’d choose to leave ‘em. . .

But occasionally, I must profess my love for a few of these improper rogues.

Case in point: the comfy who vs. the highfalutin’ and snootin’ whom.

I’m guilty of using who instead of whom 100% of the time. There is not one instance that I can ever recall saying the word whom in my 42 years on this planet. And I probably haven’t written it since my college entry essay back in 1988.

The rule for who/m is logical enough. Who and whom are relative pronouns – they relate to the subject and the direct object. Bob (subject) saw Mary (object). He saw her. In the question “Who saw her?”, who relates to the subject (Bob). In the question “Whom did Bob see?”, whom relates to the object (her). Who saw whom? Bob saw Mary.

To complicate matters further, it’s technically incorrect to end a sentence with a preposition, so “Who are you giving that apple to?” should really be “To whom are you giving that apple?” But really, who would ever say that?

Jiminy Cricket, it’s confusing – and no surprise that whom has declined in general usage. At this point no one under the age of eighty can utter the word without sounding like:

a pompous ass, or
faux British aristocracy

You’re not likely to hear “Excuse me, driver, to whom should I pay my bus fare?” the next time you experience public transit.

Faux pompous asses aside, I predict whom will be obsolete by 2030, and we will cling nostalgic to a few iconic phrases reminding us of those bygone days. Certainly no one will re-title Papa’s masterpiece. And whom would dare alter the old standby “To Whom it May Concern”?

Do you use whom? Love it or leave it?

love em’ or leave ‘em

By Liz on June 18, 2012

My formal training is as a linguist, not an English teacher, so I know that language is a fluid thing. What is considered incorrect can become correct through a critical mass of mainstream usage. But there are just certain “wrongs” that I’d hate to see gain enough traction to become “right”.

Are you guilty of using any of these? Do you think we should love ‘em (accept these transgressions and let them creep into our textbooks) or leave ‘em?

The Pesky Apostrophe

Mary likes to eat bagel’s with cream cheese and tomato.

I just saw three bird’s in that pine tree.

This one kills me – apostrophes where they don’t belong. Instead of putting a plain old “s” on the end of a word to indicate the plural, people often feel compelled to add an apostrophe, inadvertently rendering it possessive and thoroughly ungrammatical.

Correct:

Mary likes to eat bagels with cream cheese and tomato.

I just saw three birds in that pine tree.

There are rare cases it’s acceptable to use an apostrophe to indicate plural to avoid grammatical chaos – most often when talking about more than one individual letter.

There are two t’s in the word letter.

Other than that, keep your pesky apostrophe under wraps.

Now that you’re aware of the pesky apostrophe, you won’t believe how often you witness it. In your boss’s emails, plastered on the side of the bus, at the deli—no place is immune. And you’re pretty much guaranteed a pesky apostrophe when an acronym is involved:

CD’s sold here.

Check out our selection of flat screen TV’s!

I really have no explanation for why this error is so rampant, or how it got started in the first place. Frankly, I think it might be too late – the pesky apostrophe appears to have so deeply infiltrated the English-speaking population, it may soon be widely accepted.

What do you think of the pesky apostrophe? Love it or leave it?

Posts tagged ‘grammar’