"I won't not use no double negatives." —Bart Simpson

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Wednesday, September 29, 2010

Its vs. It's: It's patriotic to use good punctuation


Oy! This Iowa driver intended to show off his patriotism, but instead he demonstrated his poor grasp of punctuation. Thanks to @Capncavedan for posting this on Twitter.

Where does Mazda owner go wrong? The sticker's slogan uses the contraction it's instead of the possessive pronoun its.

Quick rules:

  • Its is a possessive pronoun. That tree won't lose its leaves until mid-October.
  • An apostrophe doesn't always show possession. Note that none of the possessive pronouns (my, your, his, her, its, our, their, whose) are spelled with an apostrophe.
  • It's is a contraction of it is (or, less frequently, it has). The apostrophe takes the place of the letter 'i'. It's raining today.

Correction:
  • If you don't like my flag, my country, or its rules...go home!

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