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Friday, September 26, 2008

Yes, punctuation counts

Maybe I’m just getting old and curmudgeonly, but I find myself growing increasingly irked when I read blog posts and tweets from communicators and PR practitioners that feature incorrect punctuation in the word “its.” My sensitivity to this error may be increasing but it seems to be occurring more and more often.

It doesn’t bother me all that much when I see the mistake in the work of people who don’t write for a living. But if you claim to be a writer, well, come on. Screwing up this fundamental bit of language is like a mechanic installing the wrong spark plugs during a tune-up.

I’m not a rigid grammarian. I split infinitives with glee and happily end sentences with prepositions when these violations of the rules make the sentence sound better. But the “its and it’s” issue isn’t negotiable and we look unprofessional and just plain dumb when we don’t get it right.

The rule is simple. It’s, with the apostrophe, is a contraction of “it is” or “it has.” Period. An apostrophe never apears in “its” for any other reason. If you can replace it’s with “it is” or “it has,” it gets an apostrophe. Otherwise, it doesn’t. And an apostrophe never appears after the word, as in its’. Its, with no apostrophe at all, is a possessive pronoun. You use its when whatever you’re talking about belongs to “it,” as in “A tiger can’t change its stripes.”

Words are the instruments of the professional communicator. Let’s use them correctly.

Posted by Shel on 09/26 at 06:15 AM
Writing and Editing • (13) Comments • (0) Trackbacks • Permalink
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