Quote:
Originally Posted by Ea
Okay, I'll be a little serious here; I simply don't understand why people (including Kenny  ) can't distinguish between a contraction of "it is" and "its". Or why people can't distinguish between other word contractions in general either... 
Maybe I need to be a native speaker to understand. My set of English language mistakes must be quite different  |
I don't get it either, but it's rampant! I taught my 5th graders that if you can't substitute the two words that belong in the contraction for the contraction, it isn't, in fact, a contraction! Take out the darn apostrophe! Possessives actually seem more difficult to explain to kids that age. If nothing belongs to that person, don't use the apostrophe. I used these ideas as a help, not a complete lesson- and many still don't get it. I think there is possibly something truly organic about this gap in understanding.
That doesn't account for the "there/their" issues so many seem to have, either. I see it a lot on every board I visit, even the teaching board I frequent. Lots of mistakes there. I know some are just typos, but I do believe many of them are actual errors in education or understanding. Pretty obvious when the same mistakes are made every post. It's sad when you realize there are some kids out there who aren't going to be taught how to properly use contractions/possessives this year
