The Apostrophe

deptfordmarmoset

I reckon the root of the problem is that possessives and contractions come together with the words ''it's/its where the almost always consistent rule about contractions suddenly collides with the similarly (almost) consistent possessive.

Tis easily solved though... . (See, the most annoying of punctuation collisions has already been avoided but, intimidated by grammarians, we tend to think of tis as only dialect or poetic.)

And the day we have English words to describe grammar, the problem about punctuation being Greek will largely subside. Apostrophe very often rhymes with catastrophe. And the register we use can tell us a lot about how power works in language. I sometimes wonder whether it's - tis- only about maintaining a ''literate'' elite who are, by virtue of their literacy, entitled to reign over us.

Bunneh

This is one thing I picked up at school and thus have the rules imprinted deeply in my psychi. I used to be extremely pedantic but over time I became more excepting of mistakes. Not everyone can remember all the rules, a lot don't give a flying crap and some, like myself, do try to get things correct. I still struggle with English but do my bestestestest to get my grammar, punctuation, back massages right.

I used to type 'it's' for every single instance of it, but after taking note of the local press I remembered what my old English teacher used to say - the ' indicates a missing letter/s. So 'it is' can become 'it's' . For example:

It's going to be a cold day - It is going to be a cold day

Another thing that has confused me is the use of 'to' and 'too'

I believe 'to' is locational, meaning 'I'm going to the shops' and I believe 'too' is 'as well as'.

I'm going to the shops

Ooo, can I come too?

My English isn't great, I couldn't write for a magazine (which is a dream) but I do try my best and if I can learn something different I'm happy

Incidently, I have friends who are doing their University courses around English and their written word is terrible. How they intend to get work afterwards scares me somewhat. Spell Checkers have ruined our minds! Sorry, mind's