Its and it's

Epicentre is another one which has me shouting at the TV. The epicentre of an earthquake is the spot on the surface over where the focus is, not the very centre, which is how it has been used (over and over and over...) in relation to coronavirus. Somebody probably thought that it sounded more scientific than just saying the 'centre' or the 'focus' of outbreaks, and then others followed.

Think I'm on a loser there though - the fate of pedants through the ages.

I hate the use of the word "everyone" in sentences such as "everyone is waiting for sport to return ". Please don't include me ! We were also told that everyone"is desperate to get out of lockdown". Again, please don't speak for me.

Loose for lose is very common, and they don't even sound the same!

But choose is pronounced similarly to lose.
Must be confusing to some.

This morning in The Times I read ‘who’s ‘ instead of ‘whose’. I shuddered!

PIN number

Probably true !

Loose for lose is very common, and they don't even sound the same! When I worked with medical records it was by no means unusual to see references to people who needed to 'loose weight' and that conjures up masses of fat flolloping around, not under control!

While we are talking about use of English, could I draw attention to my pet hate: It is "would of" instead of "would have". I am a former English teacher.

Anybody like to add to the list?
Recently I have seen too many of the following

Loose for lose
Hoard (with or without an e) for horde
Allot for a lot
Que for queue
Bare (with me) for bear with me

No doubt there are others

Fennel

Apostrophes in general - what about sentences like "I went to the doctor's? " Is that right?
Or a shop sign saying " Sally's fruit and veg".
It doesn't bother me much either to be honest. Written messages are intended to communicate between people.
ps Welbeck - I used to try to teach children with reading and writing problems and came up with that idea of giving them passages of script with deliberate errors to correct. The children loved doing it. But our poor secretary who typed them out found it very difficult.

Surely both are fine?
Doctor’s being short for Doctor’s surgery and until you hand over the money, the fruit and veg do indeed belong to Sally.

Apostrophes in general - what about sentences like "I went to the doctor's? " Is that right?
Or a shop sign saying " Sally's fruit and veg".
It doesn't bother me much either to be honest. Written messages are intended to communicate between people.
ps Welbeck - I used to try to teach children with reading and writing problems and came up with that idea of giving them passages of script with deliberate errors to correct. The children loved doing it. But our poor secretary who typed them out found it very difficult.

as to the specific it's/its question, i think the majority of adults whom ! i know , would not be sure about that.
the few who would are probably older people, over 75 and went to grammar school.
and maybe not all of them, if they were on the science side.
so by definition that is a minority of the populus.
someone above said it was basic. don't think i can agree with that.
when i was at school we did comprehension, and correcting passage of text that had these sort of errors. which made it more interesting. hunt the aberrant apostrophe.
nowadays children seem to have to learn reams of strange linguistic terms, which to me is pointless and off-putting.

That was quite a tricky sentence.
I wasn't sure where to put 'em, but the message was understood.

MissAdventure

Well, I expect it's (note: apostrophe) teachers faults if pupils don't know.

There, that's put the cat amongst the pigeons.

<grin> I believe there should be an additional apostrophe:
Well, I expect it’s teachers’ faults if pupils don’t know.

There is a lot, and to be honest, I find I couldn't give a flying fart these days.
My job requires me to write accurate, factual notes, and I can do that easily.

We're trained to do 'cyclical learning'. To cover something repeatedly, but with a light touch. But there is SO much to cover in grammar and punctuation, contractions would only come up maybe once or twice a year.

I'm glad you saw the funny side.
Punctuation was almost an afterthought when I was at school.

We skimmed it briefly, but, to be honest, I've not the faintest clue when people here talk about it in depth.

Hahaha, MissAdventure! Touche. As the saying goes, you can lead a horse to water...

Well, I expect it's (note: apostrophe) teachers faults if pupils don't know.

There, that's put the cat amongst the pigeons.

It does my bl**dy head in Baggs!

Another example that I loathe, is 'should of'. Nooo!!!!

I appreciate that point annepl. And I try not to comment. But its and it's is SUCH a basic one. I expect 11 year old foreign students to know it, so it is REALLY too much to expect native Brits to know it too?

^ The level of education varies hugely between posters, and it would be a terrible shame if the only people qualified to post were those whose use of English is impeccable.^

I agree. Also, I was educated in grammar and punctuation but I don't bother too much when I'm posting on social media. Its not that important imo.

If the schoolma’am in me ever gets bored, I could go through GN threads with a red pen and make multitudinous corrections. The level of education varies hugely between posters, and it would be a terrible shame if the only people qualified to post were those whose use of English is impeccable. The only time I struggle is when the language is so garbled that I can’t figure out what a poster is saying, and I just skip over those posts.

Its is a possessive pronoun, like his, hers, ours, yours, mine, theirs... no-one would apostrophise any of them. It's just that people get confused because there are two 'its'..

An apostrophe signifies a missing letter or letters. It's thought that nouns used to have a 'possesive' case e.g boy's would be 'boyis', the apostrophe shows that the 'i' is missing.

There used to be lots of 'short cuts' in old English orthography; such as X represented the word 'Christ', so in old parish registers you'll find Christopher written as Xtopher.

I did a bit of paleography many years ago, it's fascinating and does make you realise some things which had always been a puzzle! However, I didn't use it very much so can't remember all the 'shortcut' symbols now...

I hate apostrophe's and avoided or misuse'd them but then a 'friend sent me this. Now Im far more careful'.

when in doubt leave it out.
most of what i know is from reading grammar books after i left school. very little of use taught at school. luck of the draw.
and as you see i frequently now don't bother with upper case.
nor worry about beginning a sentence with a joining word.
i'm too old to care now. still say tooken occasionally.
clarity of meaning is my criterion.
but i remember shouting at bus automated announcements, THE british museum. anyone else noticed this. it annoys me i think because most people on the bus have english as a second language, and it gives them a bad example.
it's the kind of thing they do like to get right. like not saying i arrived to the station. or even worse, on the train, the next station stop is blabbermouth. perhaps i have a thing about public transport. i complained at euston station (stop) enquiry office once about a sign, requesting customers (! eek) to form one line. i must have sounded like victor meldrew.
passing by the following week, i noticed it had been changed as i urged, please queue here.