czgibson
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Greetings,
I've been thinking for a while that it might be useful to have a thread where people can ask questions about the English language - spelling, grammar, punctuation and things like that. After getting the thumbs-up for this idea on the "Down Crack" thread, I've decided to give it a go. Also, if anyone has questions about specific texts they are studying at school, people who've read them might be able to help out with those, too.
I'll get things started with a quick explanation about something that confuses lots of people (English or otherwise) - the apostrophe (').
Apostrophes have two main functions:
1. to show that letters have been left out of a word
2. to show that something belongs to someone or something.
They should never be used for plurals, so writing something like "I love animal's" would be wrong.
Here are some examples with the correct usage:
It's raining.
I'm feeling fine.
He's very silly.
They've moved house.
The apostrophes are there to show that the writer means "It is...", "I am...", "He is..." and "They have...".
Incidentally, when writing about decades, we don't need an apostrophe, because no letters have been left out:
The 1980s
That's simple enough, now for the more tricky part.
When we want to say that something belongs to someone or something, we write an apostrophe after the owner, and add the letter 's':
The dog's bone. (One dog owns the bone.)
John's house.
If the person or thing ends with the letter 's', or we want to talk about something with more than one owner, it's common to put an apostrophe after it, and not to add another 's':
James' football.
The dogs' bone. (More than one dog owns the bone.)
We always put the apostrophe after the owner, so in the two doggy examples above, in the first one the owner is "the dog", in the second the owner is "the dogs".
Still with me? OK. Now for the confusing part - the word "its". How do we know whether to write "it's" or "its"?
The answer is that we only use "it's" when we mean "it is". If you want to talk about something that is owned by something else, use "its":
Every rose has its thorn.
The dog was playing with its bone.
Right, I hope that's been useful for somebody. For now, bring on the questions...
Peace
I've been thinking for a while that it might be useful to have a thread where people can ask questions about the English language - spelling, grammar, punctuation and things like that. After getting the thumbs-up for this idea on the "Down Crack" thread, I've decided to give it a go. Also, if anyone has questions about specific texts they are studying at school, people who've read them might be able to help out with those, too.
I'll get things started with a quick explanation about something that confuses lots of people (English or otherwise) - the apostrophe (').
Apostrophes have two main functions:
1. to show that letters have been left out of a word
2. to show that something belongs to someone or something.
They should never be used for plurals, so writing something like "I love animal's" would be wrong.
Here are some examples with the correct usage:
It's raining.
I'm feeling fine.
He's very silly.
They've moved house.
The apostrophes are there to show that the writer means "It is...", "I am...", "He is..." and "They have...".
Incidentally, when writing about decades, we don't need an apostrophe, because no letters have been left out:
The 1980s
That's simple enough, now for the more tricky part.
When we want to say that something belongs to someone or something, we write an apostrophe after the owner, and add the letter 's':
The dog's bone. (One dog owns the bone.)
John's house.
If the person or thing ends with the letter 's', or we want to talk about something with more than one owner, it's common to put an apostrophe after it, and not to add another 's':
James' football.
The dogs' bone. (More than one dog owns the bone.)
We always put the apostrophe after the owner, so in the two doggy examples above, in the first one the owner is "the dog", in the second the owner is "the dogs".
Still with me? OK. Now for the confusing part - the word "its". How do we know whether to write "it's" or "its"?
The answer is that we only use "it's" when we mean "it is". If you want to talk about something that is owned by something else, use "its":
Every rose has its thorn.
The dog was playing with its bone.
Right, I hope that's been useful for somebody. For now, bring on the questions...
Peace
kay: 
) is often used for starting a list or giving an example, like this:
is often used to divide a single sentence into two, although its uses can vary a great deal. A vague rule of thumb is that it can be used when you want to signal a pause slightly longer that a comma.
