English Spelling and Usage

Posted by Dave Brownell On 2014/2/7 15:53:37

Suffice it to say that I enjoy and learn more from this Forum than most of the other (BMW, Corvette and Porsche) websites that I use. There's not a time when I don't learn something by tuning in on Packard topics. I am impressed by the body of knowledge and experience of the contributors. But, being the son of an English teacher and having had to write professionally for my living, there's a small point I'd like to make about two little words that are pronounced the same but with very different uses.

The word "it's" is a contraction, meaning that several letters have been left out to shorten it, instead of going to the trouble of saying it is, it has, it was, etc. The inclusion of the apostrophe does not make it work where you might want to use it as a possessive. That would be "its". So the next time you want to say something about possession, save the wear and tear on the apostrophe key and just leave out the little punctuation mark. The sentence: "It's a shame to criticize its uses." might illustrate its proper use.

This forum is light years ahead of both the Corvette and BMW forums. Bimmer fans speak in arcane terms that require slide rules and cheat sheets to know chassis and model designations. Porsche forums do much the same to limit communication to insiders. Corvette forums, while guilty of some of this, also engage in creative spelling uses. I would not be surprised to see them write: "It brakes my heart if I couldn't put petals to the meddle." May God bless all of us as we struggle with our beloved English.