Newsgroup: it.cultura.linguistica.inglese
Titolo: Possessive adjective

It is deeply irritating to see many native (and some non-native, alas, alas)
English speakers writing IT'S instead of the correct form ITS for the
possessive adjective (and pronoun). Of course I know that in the past the
possessive was actually spelt IT'S but nowadays the standard form is ITS and
I am afraid that the alternative form IT'S is more a sign of linguistic
lazyness than of ethymological accuracy.
I was literally infuriated when this morning I read the ad of a Scottish
university advertising one of its MSc courses with these words "...insight
into the energy market and IT'S future...".  Now I wonder: if the British
cannot spell their language correctly, who on earth can do?
ciao
"Fay Ce Que Vouldras"
panurgo13

 wrote in message
news:3kxQ6.1523$HK.5...@news.infostrada.it...
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
That is also one of my pet peeves.  "It's" is a contraction of "it is."
Another which drives me up the wall is that these same people (for the
most part) also cannot properly use the words "there," "their," and 
"they're."  The really sad part is, they don't care that they and/or
others don't use these and other words properly.  
-- 
Dale Erwin
http://home.earthlink.net/~erwintech

 into the energy market and IT'S future...".
In my profession, information technology, it's not unusual to see IT's.  The
context
above doesn't look like a reference to info technology, but it is something to
be aware of just in case.
What is the rule for making a possesive form of an acronym, keep the
capitalization, e.g., IT'S or
lowercase the trailing s, e.g., IT's?
Rick

 ha scritto nel messaggio
news:3kxQ6.1523$HK.5...@news.infostrada.it...
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 lowercase the trailing s, e.g., IT's?
I think the "s" should be lowercase: IT's
ciao
"Fay Ce Que Vouldras"
http://panurgo13.supereva.it
panurgo13

 Elisa
Actually, the majority of US university graduates do not have an adequate 
command of spelling or of proper grammar in English.  The same can be said
for most of their professors.  The really sad part is that they know it and
don't care.  They don't think it's important.
Pick up any US periodical and you will see this is true of the majority of 
US journalists as well.  
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 Elisa
I'd be careful about characterising all poor English spellers as
having little education, maybe a disrupted education or bicultural
one so that the rules are never truly learnt. (Rules - what rules?).
Until the printing press, English was spelt every which way, so we
are discovering our roots so to speak. ;-))))). I have friends who
aren't good spellers, it's the lack of reading, I'd say - as a book
worm from waaaay back.
For those newer to the newsgroup, there has been some interesting
research mentioned on brain activity comparisons between English and
Italian readers. 
This is just one of them:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2001/03/010316073551.htm
Dyslexia Study In Science Highlights The Impact Of English, French,
And Italian Writing Systems
Cheers,
loki

 Elisa
Working in the computer business has made my spelling worse over the years.  I
believe this is
because within a computer program you can spell anything that isn't a keyword
any way you want,
as long as you are consistent in how you do it.  A common method to decrease
the typing required
is to remove the vowels from words.  Read enough of that and soon you forget
the correct
spelling of many words.
Rick

 Rick
That's bull shit.  I worked 18 years as an IT consultant, and I can spell 
as well as anyone.
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 as well as anyone.
That's horse shit.  Spelling as well as anyone means you never spelled
very well to begin with.