August 2011 Grammar Tip

Homophones will get you every time.

It almost isn't your fault, right?  I mean, the words sound exactly the same, and for you to spell the correct word, you'd have to do all kinds of extra steps.  Study the context, contrast definitions, match spellings to meanings, and pick the correct one.  Who can be expected to endure 4 mental processes in a pinch?!

I expect you to.  All of literate humanity should be held to this level of communicative passability.

And while there are so many pitfalls we could address today (there, their, they're, whose, who's, Jon, John), let's go straight for the jugular.

It's and Its

I'm just going to offer you one straightforward test you can apply each time you attempt to use ITS or IT'S.  Noting that the apostrophe in IT'S stands for the letter i ("IT IS"), just ask yourself -- does this word stand for "it is"?

It's that simple, every time.  So if you're typing a slide for a song at church and see:

I'm coming back to the heart of worship

And its all about You, all about You, Jesus

You just ask yourself two questions:

1. Is this song retired into the worship hall of fame, never to be played again?

2. Does the its/it's word stand for "it is"?

In this anecdotal example, the song is, in fact, retired, and so the correct move would be to delete those slides and insist on a new worship song that hasn't been played 300 million times in our lifetime.  But, for the sake of grammar, let's move to question 2.

Replacing "it is" for "its", we get "It is all about you, Jesus."  Yes!  That's what we're trying to say.  And so, we know we need the apostrophe to represent that extra letter i; we go with IT'S.

One more example.  Let's say you're writing a children's book and you've just penned, "The cyborg blasted it's laser."  Firstly, that's too scary and futuristic for a kid's book.  Secondly, applying our ITS/IT'S Test, we get--

"The cyborg fired it is laser."

As this clearly makes no sense, we do not have an extra letter i, and thus do not need an apostrophe.  So "its" it is.  (<-- Yeah.)

It's its or it's, is it?

Thoughts, questions, stories, ideas for future grammar tips?

Jon