"Bob the Angry Flower's Quick Guide to the Apostrophe, You Idiots"
- Thread starter cellodaisy
- Start date
THANK YOU. THANK YOU. THANK YOU. Now if we can only get people to read it...
Haha.. no problem. Maybe we can get together a team of dedicated punctuation-lovers to comment on this thread and keep it on the front page for a while. Fight the good fight!
Ooh, good idea. How about its/it's:
its: possessive, the neuter form of his/hers. If you can replace the word in your sentence with "his" or "hers" and it makes sense, use "its."
it's: contraction, replaces "it is" or "it has."
I know what you mean! Grammar in general is a pet peeve of mine. I have a brother-in-law that drives me nuts when he speaks.."I have an ideal.", I am going to light a far (fire)., I need a worsh (wash) cloth." Not to mention in the written form...whether, weather; wear, where; to, two, too; your, you're; who, whom....the list goes on and on!
Not sure if you mean that you can't remember which is which or it drives you nuts when other people get it wrong, but either way:
there: indicates a place. Memory trick: "there" is spelled like "where."
they're: contraction, replaces "they are." Memory trick: just remember that the apostrophe signifies letters left out.
their: possessive, "belonging to them." Memory trick: none that I know of. Just gotta remember this one.
Man, do I feel for you. That must be frustrating. I don't insist that everyone have perfect grammar all the time, but I think that you set yourself up with some unnecessary obstacles if you grammar is routinely poor. People will tend to assume that you are less intelligent, capable, etc., which will have all kinds of negative consequences and may be entirely untrue.
We all have our challenges. One of mine is that I am a terrible speller, despite being an avid reader. I can barely get through typing a sentence of this post without my web browser giving me the red underline of death. Incorrect spelling looks just as bad as incorrect grammar, and I work hard to overcome it.
Don't cheat the world out of your input and expertise by expressing yourself badly!
Your, you're sheesh. Have them ALSO USe correcT CApitalization. it Drives me nuts too, to, two figure out what the blazes' they're, their, there saying. aNd periods!