roweenie wrote:(While we're at it, misuse of the possessive《's》drives me BESERK)
Yeah, well, there isn't much hope that it will ever get better, but at any rate, for those who may care enough to think about it but have trouble remembering which way is right ... This is about a part of speech called "pronoun". He, you, etc., and particularly the possessive pronoun its. And their, and your ...
Take your sentence that has one of those possessive pronouns, say "my tuba has a kink in its bell." Or is it, "it's bell"? Well, to find out, swap in another pronoun, "his". "A kink in hi's bell" ... hm, that doesn't look right. How about "the bell is really his's"? Nope. There's no putting an apostrophe in there, with "his", and the point is, "its" is exactly the same. Same part of speech, same rules. Refer to "his", and err no more.
Of course this applies the very same to your and their.
Easier way to think of it is the apostrophe replaces a missing letter. "It is" becomes "It's" , "You are" becomes "you're"
As for the OP
Michel Corette was a baroque composer who wrote, amongst other things, instructional material for the burgeoning amateur musicians of his time. He writes (and I paraphrase)
" If you are having trouble learning something in this book, write down the page number of the part that gives you difficulty. Play that number in the lottery until you master the subject. That way, you win twice"
DCottrell wrote:Easier way to think of it is the apostrophe replaces a missing letter. "It is" becomes "It's" , "You are" becomes "you're"
That's right, of course, and perfect for your and their, but it's my guess that the confusion with "it's" has its origins in the possessive noun - "tuba's" - where the apostrophe doesn't replace anything we're aware of. (And then as I believe Roweenie was lamenting, they get confused over whether that's with the possessive or the plural, and write "tuba's" when they mean "tubas." I think the way we really learn this stuff is not by memorizing rules so much as by reading a lot of correctly written text, like books, instead of social media.)
DCottrell wrote:Easier way to think of it is the apostrophe replaces a missing letter. "It is" becomes "It's" , "You are" becomes "you're"
That's right, of course, and perfect for your and their, but it's my guess that the confusion with "it's" has its origins in the possessive noun - "tuba's" - where the apostrophe doesn't replace anything we're aware of. (And then as I believe Roweenie was lamenting, they get confused over whether that's with the possessive or the plural, and write "tuba's" when they mean "tubas." I think the way we really learn this stuff is not by memorizing rules so much as by reading a lot of correctly written text, like books, instead of social media.)
¬ U 2! txt rulez!
Instead of talking to your plants, if you yelled at them would they still grow, but only to be troubled and insecure?
bloke wrote:“good for the price“...like air, or like Tennessee state income tax...??
I wish that Tennessee really didn’t have a state income tax. Fortunately, though, the Hall income tax has just about been phased out (finally!).
I do, however, like the Tennessee income tax form. It has just a few lines: list the income we tax, subtract the set amount for single or married, multiple the result by 6% (that was the value for years; it has been steadily reduced over the last few until it is 2% now, I think), mail that amount in by April 15. Simple!
Well, if you have a composer who doesn't like to use capital letters in his titles....there could be a piece named "good." In that case, you could play good.
Watchman wrote:I thought the secret was "get doctorate"....hmm, I guess this whole thing was easier than I thought.
That - and considerable debt - might get you a $5K/yr. adjunct job in some isolated college town, where you can teach 1920's wind-band excerpts to the baritone-playing children and 1890's orchestral excerpts to the tuba-playing children of $100K-year plumbers, mechanics, HVAC repairmen, electricians, welders, and steam-fitters.
Hang on now! One of those tuba excerpts comes from 1944. That's not even a hundred years ago.
