"its" or "it's" ?

[davidedric]

@Dan Marchant. Yes, the sainted Lynne Truss and her battle cry: "Pedants of the world unite, you have nothing to lose but your sense of proportion"

[FootLoose]

I love this stuff . . .



I'll go out on a limb also - and hopefully you'll see it as humour.

'It has horns', not: 'It has got horns'.

'got' is a verb, being the past participle of the verb 'to get' – the bull doesn’t need to ‘get them’ he already ‘has them’

‘has’ is the correct VERB in that simple sentence: and the sentence would be (simply) parsed thus:
‘It has horns’
It – pronoun, (Subject)
has – verb (Verb)
horns – noun (Object)

WW

Haha, William 'got' is one of my pet hates! I shudder when I walk into the motor registry (amongst other places) and read the sign that says 'have you got your ticket?' Aarrggggghhhhhhh!!!!!!

And another annoying expression in common (mis)use is 'try and...' The correct form, of course, is 'try to' but very few people seem to understand that.

And just for the antipodeans amongst us, there is no 'H' in Australia

[davidedric]

I also like that our American cousins have retained the older and I think more pleasing past participle: gotten

[Colin Southern]

As the writer of the original article referenced, all I can say is "good luck"

I support you 100% (from behind!).

[MrB]

-
We should remember that there could be many reading CiC who struggle to understand English because it's not their first language. They're not being helped if the meaning of a post is confused by its poor grammar and spelling.

Cheers.
Philip

[Tony M]

I love this stuff . . .
I'll go out on a limb also - and hopefully you'll see it as humour.

'It has horns', not: 'It has got horns'.

'got' is a verb, being the past participle of the verb 'to get' – the bull doesn’t need to ‘get them’ he already ‘has them’

‘has’ is the correct VERB in that simple sentence: and the sentence would be (simply) parsed thus:
‘It has horns’
It – pronoun, (Subject)
has – verb (Verb)
horns – noun (Object)

WW

Hah! I knew someone would pick me up on that. (Honest!) I left it there for the obvious reason that I didn't want to go into that detail - I just wanted to keep the emphasis on the apostrophe. I knew this thread would go on for a while and we could "refine" our examples.

Tony

[benm]

... and don't start me on the misuse of "their", "there" and "they're"

I had an English teacher who taught us a sentence to remember how to use the correct word: "They're over there on their Yamahas."

And don't forget all those people who confuse "lose" with "loose".

[Dr Bob]

Can someone direct me to my photography site Cambridge in Colour? I seemed to have accidently stumbled onto this grammar site.

Dr Bob

[Tony M]

i fink yool find that their r stil sum peepil hu r taykeen piktyurs but im hav'n moor fun reedin granma bookes write now.

[tbob]

Can someone direct me to my photography site Cambridge in Colour? I seemed to have accidently stumbled onto this grammar site.

Dr Bob

I seen on some other sights were their posting critics, and wear its moor about picktures and stuff. There rules are somewhat lose on posts. This here sight is worser about bean on topik.

[Dave Humphries]

Do not assume people get English grammar wrong due to a lack of education. There are plenty of people who have a very high level of education in for example engineering, science or maths that are are hopeless at written grammar. In this forum so long as I can understand what somebody has written I am happy.

Hi L.Paul,

I hope my statement has not caused any offence

I am just acutely aware that I had "English" lessons, as my first language, for about 10 years when growing up and I'm sure that doesn't apply to about half our members to whom English is a second language.

... and still I struggle!

I wasn't implying that other's education is any less good.

You are correct that language (in many forms) doesn't come easy to everyone and that doesn't mean those with less written skills aren't worth learning from, be that about photography, science, engineering, maths or anything else.

Best regards,

[siggi]

In South Africa apart from English and many ethnic languages as well as Afrikaans being spoken I often look at signwriters that get simple spelling wrong "Restrant"is quite common,Potatoe's is my favourite same goes for carrot's.It doesn't worry me as I cannot speak their languages and who am I to criticize when they make a great effort to speak english?Great lighthearted topic.

[pnodrog]

Hi L.Paul,

I hope my statement has not caused any offence

I am just acutely aware that I had "English" lessons, as my first language, for about 10 years when growing up and I'm sure that doesn't apply to about half our members to whom English is a second language.

... and still I struggle!

I wasn't implying that other's education is any less good.

You are correct that language (in many forms) doesn't come easy to everyone and that doesn't mean those with less written skills aren't worth learning from, be that about photography, science, engineering, maths or anything else.

Best regards,

Dave from following your posts I would have to say you are one of the least offensive contributors to the forum. I contribute to try and add some offensive balance.

[davidedric]

@pnogrog Typical aussie .............oops sorry, kiwi........

[pnodrog]

@pnogrog Typical aussie .............oops sorry, kiwi........

That is cruel sticking the boot into two of the colonies at the same time - just as well I have no idea what part of Scotland I can find you.

[Hero]

Oh... let's not open that can of worms... neighbour/neighbor, labor/labour, defence/defense, aluminum/aluminium, theater/theatre, cookies/biscuits/scones, jumper/sweater...

you forgot one.... (cambridge in) color/ (cambridge in) colour

[Bobobird]

In South Africa apart from English and many ethnic languages as well as Afrikaans being spoken I often look at signwriters that get simple spelling wrong "Restrant"is quite common,Potatoe's is my favourite same goes for carrot's.It doesn't worry me as I cannot speak their languages and who am I to criticize when they make a great effort to speak english?Great lighthearted topic.

Cannot make out whether the missing space after a punctuation mark is deliberate or not. There seem to be quite a few posts written this way recently.

[William W]

As I said, "I love this stuff" and I've been collecting them for a long time:



"Spelling Advice Required"


WW

[William W]

"The Specialist"


WW

[jcuknz]

It is kharki not khacki, or maybe khaki, please Richard
Most people spell correctly if they speak 'proper' english, which puts the Americans at a disadvantage, unless they are writing american. There is no excuse for kiwis and aussies. People with reginal accents also are disadvantaged and old folk with fingers who/which have a mind of their own like me/mine
I would rather be wrong in omitting the apostraphe than wrong at putting it in

Edit next day ....I thought of this thread today when I typed beginners' thread over in Photonet