In Devilstower's otherwise majesterially beautiful This Corporate Life, a review of a marvelous book promoting a key reality about society, I noticed a great instance of the problematic punctuation problem of "its" vs. "it's":
It's the inevitable result of the way corporations are formed and regulated. In it’s own way, the interwoven actions of corporation are organic.
It should have been "In its own way," for reasons that are as illogical as they are routine.
I reprise a post I made 7/7/08, for its edification value, and for the promotion of the rules it's trying to promote:
Time past long past, back when desktop publishing first changed the equation for brochures, pamphlets, and booklets (handing over textual quality control to secretaries and other in-house non-professionals), I spent a few years giving half-day workshops all across the country, entitled "Practical Proofreading."
Although I wasn't doing grammar training, I nonetheless included a few frequently-missed grammatical mistakes, often made by otherwise educated and trained writers. In each action-packed workshop, and in the handbook each participant was given, I had a section called "It's is its problem."
It's a small thing, but since language matters, and literacy may be declining (and because I want Kossacks to do it right), let me be a little school-marmish and English-majorish, just so I get it out of my system.
For most contractions, we all know the rules: "Mike's going down to the river" (Mike is going down to the river). Possessives are similarly apostrophed: "Bush's policy is stupid" (The policy of Bush is stupid).
But with "it," the contraction rules remain, while the possessive rules change. "It is," or "it has" do get the apostrophe: "It's neocon philosophy that got us into the Iraq quagmire" (It is neocon...) or "It's become clear that McCain is a bigot and a flip-flopper" (it has become clear....).
But for the possessive, there should be no apostrophe: "Its implication is obvious: Obama is our only hope for the future." Or, "When the teleprompter moves, McCain cannot follow its movement."
Were a writer to put an apostrophe in either of those "its," above, it's an error. That is, something like "The economy's going to hell in a handbasket, and it's fundamentals are flimsy as a house of cards" would be wrong even though the sentiment might be right.
"It's" is only to be used as a contraction, not as a possessive. It's the rules of the English language, and its rules, while seemingly silly, are still the rules.
Like those posts that eschew all capital letters, or those comments full of misspellings or l33t-speak, I find myself downgrading the significance of the writer's words, because its expression is hapless.
I may be an old fart about this, but when the Whole World is Watching, accuracy and grammatical correctness still matters [see comments].
"This is historic times....whether they be Christian, Jew, or Muslim, or Hindu, people have heard the universal call to love a neighbor just like they'd like to be called themselves." --George W. Bush, 10.09.03.
We is still learning. Right?