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It's "its" damn it!

MoodyBlues

MoodyBlues

Compassion is cool!
VIP Member
I'm sorry. I try hard to keep my inner grammar nazi under wraps. But sometimes, much like Dr Jekyll, it just has to emerge. :eek:

Let's talk about the constantly misused "it's" when "its" is called for.

According to Merriam-Webster:

It's is a contraction of two words, it is or it has.

Its is an adjective meaning: of or relating to it or itself especially as possessor, agent, or object of an action.

In other words, think of its as 'belonging to it'--just like hers and his mean belonging to her/him.

When you say, "the phone uses it's memory..." you're actually saying, "the phone uses it is memory...", which makes no sense.

Now, if you're saying "it's in the kitchen," that makes perfect sense! "It is in the kitchen."

That's our lesson for today. :D

Maybe next time we'll tackle the continually misused your ('belonging to you') versus the correct you're ('you are')...
 
One problem these days is that some keyboards tend to autocorrect "its" to "it's" by default (GBoard tends to assume you mean the contraction, SwiftKey is more likely to leave it as the possessive, in my personal experience - they may behave differently for someone else). So some errors you see online may not even be the individual's poor grammar but sabotage by an "intelligent" app. ;)
 
Hadron said:
One problem these days is that some keyboards tend to autocorrect "its" to "it's" by default (GBoard tends to assume you mean the contraction, SwiftKey is more likely to leave it as the possessive, in my personal experience - they may behave differently for someone else). So some errors you see online may not even be the individual's poor grammar but sabotage by an "intelligent" app. ;)
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I don't use any sort of auto-correct, so I have no personal experience with this. Of course, I trust you, so I believe what you're saying. My only question would be, why? :o If anything, it should assume the reverse, i.e., that it's should be its.

Regardless, if people took a moment to proofread before posting, like I do, they'd catch that error--if they knew it was an error.

I proofread before posting because it was ingrained in me as a child that spelling and grammar matter, and that, rightly or wrongly, you're judged by the way you write. I may not catch every error, and I definitely don't use textbook-perfect grammar all the time, but I at least try to make my posts readable! :)
 
Modern autocorrect systems try to be context aware, so don't always make the same substitutions. Indeed what I described above was the first attempt from both of those keyboards: having corrected GBoard once the next time it reversed the order.

Of course that raises another terrible prospect: that if a semi-literate person proof-reads their text they will train their keyboard to "auto-incorrect" what they type...
 
Why am I resurrecting this thread, you ask? :thinking: Because of the plethora of annoying instances of it's misused for its, all over this forum! :o

Kindly refer to the OP to learn the difference between the two words. Thank you.

PS Yes, I know I'm a grammar nazi; the OP addresses that. I'm also aware that I don't use perfect grammar all the time--but at least I know the difference between its and it's! :D

PPS This is intended to be humorous, yet educational. Please take it that way! ;)
 
MoodyBlues said:
Why am I resurrecting this thread, you ask? :thinking: Because of the plethora of annoying instances of it's misused for its, all over this forum! :eek:

Kindly refer to the OP to learn the difference between the two words. Thank you.

PS Yes, I know I'm a grammar nazi; the OP addresses that. I'm also aware that I don't use perfect grammar all the time--but at least I know the difference between its and it's! :D

PPS This is intended to be humorous, yet educational. Please take it that way! ;)
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Then there's your misused for you're, and the misuse of their, they're and there, all over this forum. Also "prolly" is not a proper word, it's probably. :eek:


BTW this always annoyed me.
2015-02-26-late-night-roundup-david-letterman-jeb-bush-nucular-306x222.jpg
 
mikedt said:
Then there's your misused for you're, and the misuse of their, they're and there, all over this forum.
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Yes, indeed! I touched on that in my OP--but thought tackling one problem at a time might be prudent. But...what do you think? Maybe it's time the your/you're issue had its own thread. :thinking:

One for there/their/they're would be good, too. Oh...and one for to/too/two.

But what about accept/except? Right/write, rain/rein/reign, than/then, and so many others?

Then there's the whole problem of would/should/could of, (which makes me shudder!) when they mean would've/should've/could've. How did they pass second grade without knowing that it's a contraction of would/should/could have? *shaking my head in disbelief*
Also "prolly" is not a proper word, it's probably. :eek:
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That's so annoying. :rolleyes:
BTW this always annoyed me.
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Not surprisingly, me too! President Jimmy Carter was the first person I ever heard pronounce 'nuclear' that way...
 
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Well if we are going to move away from punctuation the one that gets me is "I could care less". The user means the opposite of what they say, yet isn't being sarcastic, so it gives the impression that they simply don't understand basic grammar. This seems to be a purely American error, which is probably why it always strikes me: I wasn't brought up hearing it and so never learned to accept it as a phrase without parsing it.

I'm quite well trained to let grammar errors pass on the Internet, but in a professional context I'm constantly pulling people up for things like "the data is" - the word "data" is plural (the singular is "datum"), and I find this every bit as grating as "the horses is" would be.
 
Hadron said:
Well if we are going to move away from punctuation the one that gets me is "I could care less".
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Oh, yes... I grew up hearing that, and it didn't make sense to me, even as a young child. I knew what the person's point was, but I couldn't understand why they were saying the opposite of it. :thinking:

There's another phrase from my youth, one my grandmother used, and that I hear occasionally in old movies and TV shows. It's, "well, I like that!", said in a huff, usually by a woman, an upset woman, typically after being insulted or something. Like the other one, it means the exact opposite of what it says! It means she's very offended and definitely does not like that. I pondered those two a lot. :)

I'm with you on the data thing, too. On a similar note is the mismatching caused by 'none.' For example, "none of the houses are for sale," or "none of the girls have red hair." 'None' should be thought of as 'not one'--so it's, "none of the houses is for sale," or "none of the girls has red hair."

I could go on and on!
 
Hadron said:
Modern autocorrect systems try to be context aware, so don't always make the same substitutions. Indeed what I described above was the first attempt from both of those keyboards: having corrected GBoard once the next time it reversed the order.

Of course that raises another terrible prospect: that if a semi-literate person proof-reads their text they will train their keyboard to "auto-incorrect" what they type...
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You got that right brother. Im one of them and dam!!! if my spelling wasn't bad enough now my auto correctly is more like auto incorrect.
 
Now that we've mastered its vs it's, let's tackle another extremely common pair of confused words: your and you're.

These two words may sound alike--but they're not the same! They have completely different meanings and cannot be used interchangeably. When you attempt to do so, guess what? People may make negative assumptions about your intelligence, literacy, and education.

Your means 'belonging to you.'
You're means 'you are.'

Here are some examples of correct usage:

- your right hand
- you're right about that

- your stupid brother annoys me
- you're stupid, brother!

When unsure which one to use, just replace it with 'you are' and see if that makes sense. Let's say you want to write about someone's phone: "Make sure your using the right charger." What you're actually trying to say is: "Make sure you are using the right charger," right? So your cannot be the correct word; you're is: "Make sure you're using the right charger."

If you're stuck, post here! Someone will help you sort it out. :)

--
 
Thankfully I rarely encounter misuse of "your" and "you're", but it is very hard not to make assumptions about the person when you do (especially if it's done consistently).

The ones that give me more trouble are at a level of refinement above that, e.g. using the word "data" as a singular (a collection of data, or "dataset", is singular because it's a collection. But the singular of data is "datum", and if you have more than one datum then you have "data"). The trouble is that the majority of people don't understand this, and have no consideration for those who do...
 
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