Ad Brochure Cannot Keep Its "Its" Straight

I'm still proofreading the ad brochure I mentioned in my last post, and I am wondering why people find it so difficult to distinguish between ITS (belonging to an IT) and IT'S ( short for IT IS or IT HAS). Brent Watson did a column about reverse mortgages and said this:

The nation's elderly population is at it's highest in history and will be that way over the next several years.

Whoops! This sentence calls for the possessive form (IT referring back to the population). The sentence should read this way:

The nation's elderly population is at its highest in history and will be that way over the next several years.

I'll share some more sentence gems from the reverse mortgages column tomorrow, but the Subaru ad at the back of the brochure contains this sentence:

It truly has a flagship sedan that offers better performance, passenger volume, fuel economy, and standard AWD at a better price than it's FWD competitors.

Whoops again! This sentence also calls for the possessive form (IT referring back to the sedan). The sentence should read this way:

It truly has a flagship sedan that offers better performance, passenger volume, fule economy, and standard AWD at a better price than its FWD competitors.

More Incompetence with Apostrophes

My friend Mark LaFlaur, a free-lance editor in New York City, is also disgusted with the lack of understanding about when to use apostrophes. He and his wife recently spotted an ad poster for cable or cell phone service on the Long Island Railroad that read:

OPTIMUM?
ABSOLUTELY!

Beneath the headline, an apparently disgruntled customer had scrawled:

STINK'S

Again, as this blog has pointed out numerous times, it is NOT necessary to put an apostrophe before the S in a simple verb. Even a graffiti artist ought to have known it should be written STINKS.

Mark e-mailed a friend and commented that the new "rule" on this subject seems to be that, with any word ending in S, whether it's a noun, verb, or other part of speech, insert an apostrophe before the S in order to play it safe. You can't go wrong!

But the truth is, if you use that rule, you do indeed go wrong and create a Grammar Glitch that highlights your ignorance.

Mark's friend responded by commenting that "Today, huge numbers of people think that the possessive of IT is IT'S. (See yesterday's Fox News blog entry.) English language competence in the U. S. has taken another wrong turn, with some people now thinking that the way to make a plural of a noun is to add 'S. He backed up his point with two example sentences from a recent Huffington Post blog entry:

Agents are not career coach's.

Follow in the foot-step's of Tom Brokaw.

NOTE: When I checked the Huffington Post blog site, these two goofs had been corrected. They now read correctly as follows:

Agents are not career coaches.

Follow in the footsteps of Tom Brokaw.

Stay tuned. Mark LaFlaur is an excellent editor, and he has shared some other good examples of "Incorrect (or Questionable) Usage in Print." I will share more of them in coming days.

Fox News Headline Creator Needs Apostrophe Refresher

Last evening's Fox News broadcast had a story about Sarah Palin speaking in Nashville. The on screen headline read as follows:

Sarah Palin Brought Tea Party Convention to It's Feet.

This is my 23rd blog entry on grammar glitches featuring apostrophes. If you use ITS to refer to something belonging to an IT (in this case, the feet at the Tea Party convention), you do NOT need an apostrophe.

As I have reminded many times before, the ONLY time the word IT'S should have an apostrophe is when it is used as a shortcut (contraction) for IT IS or IT HAS

This headline should have read as follows:

Sarah Palin Brought Tea Party Convention Delegates to Their Feet.

BONUS POINT: If you want to be technically correct, a convention does not have feet. Its (no apostrophe!) delegates do.

I hope Fox News will run a Grammar Glitch course for its (no apostrophe!!) writers.

ITS and IT'S again! And millions of dollars!

I counted. It's been nineteen days since the last time I spotted a grammar glitch with ITS and IT's. Here is the one that greeted me in a full page ad for Thomasville furniture this morning:



In preparation for a new Thomasville in 2010, the factory has authorized the liquidation of inventories from it's stores and millions of dollars from the warehouse.



Whoops! This ad is not talking about "it + is" stores. It is talking about stores belonging to the factory (the factory and its stores...). NO APOSTROPHE IS NEEDED WITH THE POSSESSIVE PRONOUN.



There is another problem here, too. I would love to have my share of the "millions of dollars" they've been hiding in that warehouse. According to this sentence, they are liquidating inventories from their stores AND liquidating millions of dollars from the warehouse. Where do I get in line???



The sentence ought to read as follows:



In preparation for a new Thomasville in 2010, the factory has authorized the liquidation of inventories from its stores as well as millions of dollars worth of inventories from its warehouse.



Amazing how much difference a little wording change can make!

Why Can't Writers Keep Its and It's Straight?

Maybe it's more difficult than it seems, but writers continue to confuse ITS and IT'S. I already have several examples on this blog, but here's a new one that appeared in a wedding feature in last Sunday's local newspaper:



(The reception) was held at the Matt Jones Art Gallery in Birmingham because they liked it's locale and decor.



Whoops. Here we go again. IT'S (with an apostrophe) has only TWO meanings, and neither of them is possessive, as in "the locale and decor" belonging to the gallery. IT'S (with an apostrophe) is a contraction of either "it + is" or "it + has," as in "It's raining again today." or "It's been a pleasure working with you." There are no other ways to use this word.



ITS (without the apostrophe) means only ONE thing--belonging to an "it," as in the example sentence above. In that sentence, "its" refers to the locale and decor of the gallery (which is an "it").



Got that? The example sentence should read as follows:



(The reception) was held at the Matt Jones Art Gallery in Birmingham because they (the bride and groom) liked its locale and decor.



Grammar glitch aside, we do wish Lisa and Kevin (the bride and groom) a long and happy life together.

Please Keep Your Its and It's Straight!

Michael Tomberlin did an excellent interview recently with John Knapp, Ethics and Leadership Professor at the Brock School of Business at Samford University. Knapp is also the director of the Frances Marlin Mann Center for Ethics and Leadership.

The quote from John Knapp that headlines the article is one worth remembering: "Unethical behavior can sometimes be profitable in the short run. It is seldom profitable over the long term."

In the article, Tomberlin offers Bernard Madoff and Marcus Schrenker as good examples of people who made huge profits in the short term but became objects of shame and derision in the long term.

Unfortunately, Tomberlin remembered his ethics but forgot his good grammar when he wrote this statement:

"Of course, you don't have to be an ethics professor to see people exhibiting unethical behavior--whether its Bernard Madoff's alleged $50 billion Ponzi scheme or Marcus Schrenker bailing from an airplane over Harpersville...."

For the record, "it's" as used in this sentence is a contraction of "it" and "is," and needs the apostrophe to be correct.

It should read: "...whether it's Bernard Madoff's alleged...."

I might add that profit gained solely through greed can turn out to be its own worst enemy--or something like that.

A New Wrinkle in the "Its" Fabric

I see examples of confusion about the proper use of "its" (possessive) without an apostrophe and "it's" (contraction of it+is or it+has) with the apostrophe. Today I came across a new one: putting the apostrophe AFTER the "s," which would not ever be correct.

While visiting the Gulf coast, we surfed the Internet this morning for good prices on a round of golf and came across this sentence during our search:

Perdido Bay Golf Club was the former site of the Pensacola Open for 10 years, and continues to hold its' integrity as a premier championship golf course.

There would NEVER be a good reason for putting an apostrophe AFTER the "s" in "its." Also, as I've pointed out in several previous posts, an apostrophe is NEVER used in the possessive form. Therefore, the sentence should read as follows:

Perdido Bay Golf Club was the former site of the Pensacola Open for 10 years, and continues to hold its integrity as a premier championship golf course.

While we are looking at this sentence, let me also point out that the meaning is a little confusing. I believe the writer meant to suggest that Perdido Bay Golf Club was the site of the Pensacola Open for ten years, not the FORMER site for ten years.

In addition, as I have pointed out in many of my grammar workshops, it is not necessary to put a comma before "and" when what comes after "and" is not a complete thought.

How about rewriting this sentence as follows for better punctuation and greater clarity:

Perdido Bay Golf Club was the site of the Pensacola Open for 10 years and continues to hold its integrity as a premier championship golf course.

Now that we have that straight, I hope you are having a great weekend wherever you are and whatever you're doing.

Still having trouble with "its" and "it's"? You are not the only one.

While shopping on the Internet this week, I came across two websites that have not figured out how to use its and it's correctly. The first was the teavana.com website that offers wonderful, high quality green tea at great prices. In advertising their product, someone wrote:

Green tea has long been praised for it's health benefits.

I agree about the tea, but it's WITH the apostrophe is not the possessive form. It can only be used where you can replace it's with "it is" or "it has." That does not work here. You would not say, "Green tea has long been praised for 'it is' health benefits (or praised for 'it has' health benefits). The sentence should read this way:

Green tea has long been praised for its health benefits.

After ordering my tea, I moved on to hydrangeas. We are thinking about putting some in our side yard, and I wanted to check on the best season for planting them. On a website with beautiful photos and great information, I saw the following sentence about the Annabelle variety of hydrangea:

Annabelle seems to be variable in the quality of it's bloom.

This sentence has the same problem as the "tea" sentence. It is referring to the bloom OF THE Annabelle variety. Therefore, it needs the possessive form to show that the bloom belongs to the Annabelle.

Most of us would never consider putting an apostrophe in HIS, HERS, OURS, THEIRS, YOURS, so why do we persist in putting one in ITS when it is possessive? The sentence should read as follows:

Annabelle seems to be variable in the quality of its bloom.

I hope these examples are helpful. It's (It has) been fun trying to explain this grammar rule and its two different usages.

Apostrophe Confusion--Again!

I am still trying to help reduce the number of apostrophe goofs that appear in print. Here are three I came across recently, followed by the corrected versions:

Another blogger posted this sentence on his website in June:

It depends upon what others write about you and the ranking of their SITE'S in Google....

Let me repeat AGAIN: The apostrophe is NOT USED in making a word plural. He should have referred to "their SITES" (with no apostrophe).

*******************

The Hoover Library Fiction website recently described a book as follows:

The "New York Times" bestselling AUTHORS most remarkable novel yet...." (sounds as if several authors put the book together)

This description intends to describe ONE bestselling AUTHOR'S most remarkable novel yet (novel belongs to author, so AUTHOR'S, which is possessive).

**********

The Birmingham News carried a sports story last Monday morning in which the reporter just couldn't make up his mind about IT'S and ITS. Because he apparently wasn't sure which version was correct, he decided to use both and wrote a sentence that went something like this:

This team is now pleased with its quality and it's speed.

He really can't have it both ways. When he is writing about the quality and the speed BELONGING to the team (IT), he MUST use the version WITHOUT the apostrophe:

This team is now pleased with its quality and its speed.