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Subject:Friendly reminder from the apostrophe police From:"Adams, John C" <jca18394 -at- GLAXOWELLCOME -dot- COM> Date:Fri, 5 Mar 1999 10:02:54 -0500
Colleagues -
Just a reminder that English includes two forms of the word its, one without
the apostrophe (possessive for belonging to it) and one with an apostrophe
(contraction of it is). There are lots of homonyms in English, but they mean
entirely different things, and misuse can really puzzle someone whose native
language isn't English. By the way, "whose" is possessive for "belonging to
whom," while "who's" is a contraction of "who is."
I'm sure many of us are amazed at the proliferation of apostrophes to form
simple plurals, especially now that the internet makes it so much easier to
share this common error.
Cheers.
John Adams
Technical Communications & Design Specialist
Corporate & Finance IS
Glaxo Wellcome Inc.
483-9109
