Pet Peeves -- The Acceptance of the Illiterati

It amazes me that in this day and age of communication, we are losing our basic ability to spell and express ourselves clearly. This is not just limited to spammers on the Internet, but happens even in large corporations. For example, Bell Canada, on the front cover of the Ottawa phonebook, put "Over 12 millions listings." Doesn't anyone check these things any more?

In an effort to help weed out some of the more common/annoying errors, here's a short list:

• "it's" is a short form for "it is", and is not the possessive form of "it" (that would be "its") -- one sees this in television ads all the time
• "there" refers to a place, and is not the possessive form of "them" (that would be "their"), nor is it a short form for "they are" (that would be "they're")
• "your" is the possessive form of "you", and is not the same as "you are" -- that would be "you're"
• "irregardless" is not a word -- "regardless" already covers that concept
• the abbreviation for "et cetera" is "etc", not "ect".
• "nuclear" is pronounced "new-clear", not "new-cu-ler"
• there is no such word as "yous" -- "you" is already plural (nor "you's" as an ill-formed contraction for "you is" -- that brings us back to "you are" and "you're").
• "to" indicates direction, "too" indicates "also".

Punctuate the following...

I always loved this "Punctuate the following" quiz:

John where Jim had had had had had had had had had had been better

The answer is:

John, where Jim had had "had had," had had "had." "Had had" had been better.

Recently, I came up with:

its not its not its its its not its

With the answer:

It's not "its not it's," it's "it's not its."