Important notice from the GRAMMAR POLICE. Plz read. This means you.

[rohina]

I have a wacky colleague who insists on courier. And a paperclip. Why? I have no idea.

[rufio]

Once when I was 12, I turned in an essay written in Comic Sans just to see what would happen.  Unfortunately (or, perhaps, fortunately for my grade) nothing did.  My high school teachers had no backbone.

[witch]

My workplace is so sick of tutors using stupid fonts, spacing, headings and layout I have been asked to make templates for everything from PowerPoint slides to reports, faxes and memos.

So tomorrow morning I will be locking down dox. 

The committee - argh - has decided on Calibri size 11, which could have been worse, at least they didn't choose Times new Roman.

[PirateFaafy]

Twentieth Century Dramatic Lesbianism

For a second I thought this was a font that you were referring to.

* Faafy goes off to look for this font

Once when I was 12, I turned in an essay written in Comic Sans just to see what would happen.  Unfortunately (or, perhaps, fortunately for my grade) nothing did.  My high school teachers had no backbone.

Oh god, Comic Sans. I was asked to revise an essay once that was written entirely in Comic Sans. I put a big red pen line through the cover page and upon it wrote "DIFFERENT FONT". I got out of it by saying that their teacher wouldn't accept the paper. But in reality, they probably would have. I just want to see that font dead.

[Georgette]

Could be worse. I remember in year 8 when all the girls in my class would do their homework/projects in Curlz MT. I, ever the non-conformist chose to avoid this annoying trend. Coursework at my school gets rejected now if it's not in size 12 Times New Roman, which I personally dislike but it's an improvement on Impact, for sure.

[Stitches]

Generally, we get frowned upon for handing in anything that's not Times New Roman. A few of the profs might let an Ariel or two slip by, but they tend to be the zanier ones, teaching Twentieth Century Dramatic Lesbianism or what not.

My college's literature department is officially pro-Ariel. All coursework must be done in Ariel. However, the history department has a serif fetish. Most of the professors require Times New Roman. A few of them require Courier. Apparently, it's tradition.

[jolrei]

Generally, we get frowned upon for handing in anything that's not Times New Roman. A few of the profs might let an Ariel or two slip by, but they tend to be the zanier ones, teaching Twentieth Century Dramatic Lesbianism or what not.

My college's literature department is officially pro-Ariel. All coursework must be done in Ariel. However, the history department has a serif fetish. Most of the professors require Times New Roman. A few of them require Courier. Apparently, it's tradition.

In that case, for the sake of tradition, they should insist on a real typewriter font, non-proportional, that emulates the fuzzy edges of letters you'd get from worn hammers and old ribbon.  That's tradition.

[Midwing]

Being as I know I can rely on the highly-refined grammar knowledge presented in this here forum, I was hoping that somebody may be able to shed some light on correct apostrophe use before I slip up and make a royal tit of myself.  (Granted, it's possible that I have done so already unbeknownst to me.  I do try, but I'm equally as eager to learn.)

I was taught consistently throughout high school that "it's" is apostrophised only when used as a conjunction of the phrase "it is".  Similarly I was taught that possession is indicated by use of an apostrophe: the man's telephone, the animal's cage.  When "it" is used as a personal pronoun - "the dog and its bone" - I am completely lost.  It seems the ranks are divided completely evenly and only one can be correct.  Does its always take an apostrophe afterwards?  Its'?  I've not seen that before.  I was told that apostrophe use is determined by whether the subject is referred to in the sentence already but I'm no linguistic expert. 

Having seen people correct its as its' within the forum when various other websites contradict this usage, I'm now even more confused than I was previously.

[Georgette]

As far as I'm aware, the apostrophe is only necessary when it's a contraction of it is, and using it in any other context is wrong. The grammar police will obviously know for sure though.

Edit: corrected typo

[Roflganger]

Ranks are not divided - there is only one correct answer.  Possessive form of it = its.  Nothing else.  

ETA: "It's" is a contraction, not a conjunction.

[Jack Rudd]

Grammar Cat is ready to answer your questions:

[Midwing]

Bugger, contraction, yes.  At least a conjunction is a grammatical element, to lessen the pwn of my epic fail.  Noted.

Indeed Roflganger, I knew only one answer could be the correct answer; it was knowing who to trust between an English teacher and a grammar Nazi that I was unsure of.  In this case, both parties were wrong since "the dog and it's bone" and "the dog and its' bone" are both incorrect.  I knew you would not fail me, MATY.  You did not disappoint.

However, it was this post of yours which stumped me.  Perhaps I misunderstood your intention - my brain has a habit of malfunctioning on me at times, resulting in mindfuck.

[CheritaChen]

Indeed Roflganger, I knew only one answer could be the correct answer; it was knowing who to trust between an English teacher and a grammar Nazi that I was unsure of.  In this case, both parties were wrong since "the dog and it's bone" and "the dog and its' bone" are both incorrect.

I know I shouldn't be so surprised that an "English teacher" (quotes intentional) would promote either one of these idiocies, but alas. Are there any higher-ups to whom you might recommend some corrective action to keep this so-called teacher from infecting others with his/her stupidity?

However, it was this post of yours which stumped me.

Look more closely. Roflganger was striking through an extraneous apostrophe. See that little line underneath the apostrophe in red? That's because strikethrough style doesn't know to hop up to where the apostrophe normally lives. It just puts its line somewhere in the middle of where lowercase glyphs are aligned.

[Midwing]

Better to have questioned my own understanding of grammar before I questioned somebody else's.

I am sure it would be within my power to forward such matters to a person of higher authority but being as quality of education has never been a primary concern for that particular school, I doubt it would be well received.  There was more than one occasion where students had to correct teachers, not to mention that I'm hardly a favourite of the current headteacher.  (Apparently I am not within my rights to object to being placed in a GCSE English Language class barely weeks away from the exam to be taught how to use a full stop correctly in a sentence alongside lesser beings who needed this instruction.)

Also, I appreciate your clarification.  I'd mistaken the strikethrough for an exclamation mark and naïvely assumed that the apostrophe had been added.

[rohina]

The rule you want to think about here is the rule that says possessive pronouns don't take apostrophes while possessive nouns do.

"The boy's dog becomes "his dog", and not "hi's dog".
"The book is the girl's" becomes "the book is hers" not "the book is her's".
"That plate belongs to me and the other one belongs to you" becomes "This is mine; that is yours" not "This is mine; that is your's".

Thus, possessive pronouns are as follows:

mine
yours
his, hers, its
ours
yours (again, for the plural)
theirs

None of them take an apostrophe.

[Midwing]

Indeed.  Funny you may think it but we were never taught any kind of grammatical terminology beyond what nouns, verbs and adjectives are.  We got a brief intro on adverbs and most everything else consisted of learning the difference between a metaphor and a simile, learning how to write short stories, persuasive texts or newspaper articles and snazzy but generally useless things such as alliteration and mnemonics.  Never mind sentence structure, tenses or even something as basic as being taught how to speak and write our country's predominant language.  No word of a lie, I still see people spell babies as baby's or more annoyingly, would have as would of.

I remember my A-level French class consisting of ream after ream of conjugated verbs, not only having to memorise them but having to know how to conjugate any verb we wanted.  Although I adore the English language, at times it can be a shame that it is not bound by so many rules and restrictions such as gender agreement.  Maybe if communication depended on it, more people would be encouraged to at least make the effort to learn it. 

[rohina]

So you are saying because you didn't know the terminology, what I said is not a rule?

Oh, and I can easily believe you weren't taught how to write effectively.

[Midwing]

So you are saying because you didn't know the terminology, what I said is not a rule?

Au contraire.  What I am saying is, for somebody who obviously has a firm grasp on the technicalities of the English language and especially with regard to grammar, you would probably find it shocking that it's something we weren't even taught.  Pointing out, in rather a poor manner it seems, that less attention was paid to actually learning how to read and write English at my school than at yours.  It was barely even seen as important.

Oh, and I can easily believe you weren't taught how to write effectively.

This being the reason for asking in the first place.  It's never too late to learn.

[rohina]

If I were shocked every time some retard said it didn't learn something in school, my job would have killed me by now. Did you have an actual point, here?

What is it with you people who ask grammar questions and then ignore the perfectly sensible answers you are given? What are you, gerbils?

[DrNerd]

How do schools not teach tense and subject/verb agreement anymore?  Is this like the "New Math" where kids don't learn times tables or fractions that aren't 1/2, 1/4, 3/4, 1/3, or 2/3?  That's like trying to build a functional house out of pretzel sticks and spit.

I am all for Child Left Behind.  If you're a dumbass, learn the basics.  If you're not a dumbass, learn stuff that actually challenges you.

[Midwing]

You weren't ignored - I acknowledged your response.  What further concession would you have liked?  I then simply corrected the misconception that I believed you to be incorrect in what you had said.  I agreed whole-heartedly.

As for why I was giving you my life story, no, there was no point to that.  I thought somebody in a parallel dimension cared.  I was talking at whoever would listen.

As for Math, DrNerd, don't even get me started.  We were left to teach ourselves the remaining two chapters of the book as we were seen as "capable".  The teacher focused her efforts on teaching algebra, simple x+y=z formulae, for the third or fourth time that year.

[witch]

It's because the morons are all breeding like rabbits.

[Roflganger]

Oh, and I can easily believe you weren't taught how to write effectively.

This being the reason for asking in the first place.  It's never too late to learn.

Indeed.  "Funny you may think it" parses to me as "Funny, you might think so but..." more than the apparently intended "You might think it's funny, but..."  I'm not saying that was the source of Rohina's confusion, but it certainly caused some for me.

[rohina]

People who start sentences with "This being" tend to be lost causes anyway, because even if you can teach them to express themselves grammatically, the whole "this being" construction tends to be a marker for "causality, it is not for me".

[jolrei]

People who start sentences with "This being" tend to be lost causes anyway...

HEY!  I do that sometimes.  This being the case, perhaps I should repent me of my wrongdoing, although I really think I use the construct correctly.  I am open to comments and criticism, of course.

As a lost cause, perhaps I should sing "Dixie" (or was that a Glorious Cause?).