Must... Control... Fist... Of... Death...

[jbsegal]

"who's" = "who is"

"whose" = The possessive form of "who" (or "which", says AHD4)

I've seen so many intelligent people make this mistake TODAY that it's (not "its", notice) driving me bugfuck.

Comments

[avram]

I’ve stopped caring. There are so many important things in the world to be angry over, why should I waste good anger on the misuse of arbitrary and poorly designed writing and grammatical constructs?

[jbsegal.livejournal.com]

I find "people getting stupider" to be something worth getting mad about.

[avram]

I might, if I thought being able to keep track of such things was actually a sign of intelligence.

[naiaha.livejournal.com]

http://www.apostrophe.fsnet.co.uk/

[jbsegal.livejournal.com]

I usually go for the Bob The Angry Flower strips, myself. :)

[marcusmarcusrc.livejournal.com]

Actually, the Apostrophe Protection Society is mistaken in one regard. There are in fact several cases wherein it is legal to use an apostrophe for pluralization. Single letters, acronyms, numbers, and occasionally very short words are all considered legal targets for apostrophic pluralization (I just made up that term, but doesn't it sound cool?).

So "CD's" and "1000's" are actually both legal (though it is equally legal, and I believe now preferable, not to use apostrophes in those cases). I do always use apostrophes when pluralizing letters: "mind your p's and q's" being the typical example.

[naiaha.livejournal.com]

The APS isn't so much incorrect as British.

[tb]

They're, their.

OMG L0L!!!11! kthxbye.

[fidgetmonster.livejournal.com]

huh. i can't even imagine this mistake in an educated person. that sounds horribly elitist (i'm sorry! *truly sheepish look*), but i can't. i hope you have an example of the misuse that will clear this up for me? Just an over-tired brain snafu?

[jbsegal.livejournal.com]

{person), "who's personality is {personality type}"

is a modified version of the proximate cause of this rant.

[42itous.livejournal.com]

I don't mind so much when people abuse apostrophes in their speech, but yes, it does make me unreasonably violent-minded when I see apostrophe abuse in writing.

Huh? Oh, right. not in speech, just in writing. my bad.

(current mood = silly)

[infinitehotel.livejournal.com]

For whatever reason, I missed that class in 7th grade and still occasionally get the possessive apostrophe wrong. It's not so much ignorance as that it was never really emphasized as important so when I'm roughing something out, it's always the mistake that gets missed. Five years of writing group critique has mostly cured me, but it still pops up. (Oddly, whose, who's, their, they're, etc. are no problem. Must have been there that day.)

These days I'm much more likely to look at the whole before calling that stupid. I've met incredibly grammatical people who could spell both "posterior" and "cenote" but couldn't tell their former from the latter worth a damn. :)

[chesuli.livejournal.com]

Hah. I just had to toss out the fundraising request letter from the local fire department... the whose/who's and its/it's errors were driving me mad. (We won't even get into the general grammar of the letter)

Last year I politely pointed out that really, a well-written letter would get FAR more donations. Even offered my writing/editing services.

We see how well THAT worked out...

[whitebird.livejournal.com]

Huh. Thanks. I think you identified what I saw in the title of a story in an anthology I'm currently formatting that bugged me. I'll pass it on to the editors once I verify that the story in question was titled improperly.

And, yeah, it bugs the hell out of me when I notice. Moreso when I notice me doing it.

[teddywolf.livejournal.com]

It's a factor that annoys me in my weekly gaming run. Several of the players, all of whom are educated, bright guys, all living at least reasonably well and gainfully employed aside from myself, have such trouble spelling.

*shakes head* I have to beat down my inner grammar cop semi-regularly, but I do it.

[vettecat.livejournal.com]

Plural vs. possessive mistakes is a pet peeve of mine in general...