>>>>>>>Hi everybody,
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>Just curious how many of you know when to use its and when it's? I see a wrong usage in native speakers' texts quite often...
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>I do, but until I started writing and editing regularly, I had to stop and think about it every time. I finally figured out that the possessive "its" matches up with "his" and "hers" and thus doesn't need an apostrophe.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>Tamar
>>>>>
>>>>>My former manager once told me, that two most common mistakes native speakers do are "it's/its" wrong usage and using word "irregardless" <g>
>>>>>
>>>>>I noiticed recently that my son's teacher spelled "yogurt" wrongly in the paper distributed to homes...
>>>>
>>>>I noticed you spelt "noiticed" :-)
>>>>
>>>>I was at a pub quiz last year where the MC said "Which verb can mean a strong whirlpool sea current or a devastating sequence of events?"
>>>>
>>>>Of course, I thought "Maelstrom" but that's a noun. The whole pub was flummoxed by this and protested to him later that it's a noun. He declared indignantly "Don't tell me my job - I'm an English teacher". He later relented and said "OK, it CAN be a noun too".
>>>>
>>>>I was nearly apoplectic by now and the whole pub jumped down his throat. I forgot to ask him which school he taught at, to ensure I don't send my kids there.
>>>
>>>It should have twigged right at the beginning since a verb can be neither "a current", nor "a sequence".
>>
>>Of course it twigged immediately in my brain - the answer AND the protest. Or is this a joke? :-)
>
>Sorry, no. From your line I thought "Maelstrom" but that's a noun. I got the impression that you were sitting in the pub searching your mind for a verb that fit his definition. My bad.

Ah. I thought Maelstrom within half second of end of question, but DOES NOT COMPUTE flashed in my head as he said "verb". If I'd been a 1960s TV computer I would have smoked then burst into flames. :-)