08-08-2003, 10:13 AM
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Thinker
Join Date: Sep 2004
Posts: 454
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It's not hard to use "it's" properly, yet...
"It's" is always a contraction of the words "it" and "is", and does not denote possession of something.
Still, every day I read one review or another from someone in the tech community � whose members I would assume are generally pretty clever � in which the author uses this word incorrectly. (Or else uses what's called "the grocer's apostrophe", as in "Banana's for sale", which would mean "Banana is for sale".)
So, here it is:
Its is possessive.
Always charge its battery.
It's is short for "it is".
It's important to keep the battery charged.
This is a great grammar reference website if you want to brush up on apostrophes and other parts of speech:
http://www.protrainco.com/info/grammar.htm
Some people think that talking about grammar and spelling is somehow elitist. It's not. These things are tools for transmitting ideas in the clearest, most powerful way, and as a writer who's passionately committed to a lifetime of getting better at what I do, I can't imagine not caring about these things and still calling myself a writer.
When I read a review that contains these sorts of errors, I tend to unconsciously discount the piece as amateur, since the writer has ignored or doesn't care about good, accepted practices of style. These mistakes are rampant on the Internet, and I think that partly accounts for the tendency in some circles to dismiss it as a source of good information � which is a shame, since it's the biggest democratising force since the printing press.
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