Govinda's Guide to Grammar, Punctuation and Other Stuff

[Govinda]

The next time I see 'should of' instead of 'should have' on this forum I am going to begin reporting the culprits to the mods for excessively irritating behaviour.



Also, I've seen some people messing this up quite a lot lately, people I would never have expected. No naming of names, but hell, guys, come on!



Its, It's

'Its' is the shortened form of 'belonging to it'. 'It's' is a literal abbreviation of 'it is'.

The rainforest is essential to our planet. It's really important that we start respecting its significance.

It's a pretty cool theory. I mean, if you really look into its ideas, it's such a well-thought out explanation...

The significance belongs to the rainforest and the ideas belong to the theory. So we use 'its'.

Meanwhile, I'm reading Imperial Life in the Emerald City and it's the single best piece of non-fiction I've ever read. Except that anthropology thing where the middle class guy went and lived with Puerto Rican crack lords in East Harlem. Anyway.