The "It's" Hit List

Mashable.com

2007-10-21T14:46:00.000-07:00

Wrong:

In a story that really shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone, NBC has ended it’s official relationship with YouTube.

Business Pundit - Dasani: fixed!

2007-08-23T07:00:00.000-07:00

Wrong:
The best way to do viral marketing is to participate honestly and openly in a community, and just keep building your distribution, then let the occasional viral post or video happen on it's own.

Leo Chiang DOT COM: fixed!

2007-07-10T21:54:00.000-07:00

Wrong:
Porn and it’s Relation to Your Social Life

Leo is fast! Thanks!

Yahoo! News

2007-07-09T09:06:00.000-07:00

Wrong:

Fielding was responding to a 10 a.m. EDT deadline set by the Democratic chairmen, Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont and Conyers, for the White House to explain it's privilege claim, prove that the president personally invoked it and provide logs of which documents were being withheld.

CNN posted a similar article, probably yanked from the same AP wire. Correct:

Fielding was responding to a 10 a.m. ET deadline set by the Democratic chairmen, Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont and Rep. John Conyers of Michigan, for the White House to explain its privilege claim, prove that the president personally invoked it and provide logs of which documents were being withheld.

Who knows if the original AP wire article was correct? CNN pays professional journalists and the AP wire is also written by professional journalists, so I'm betting that Yahoo News editors "corrected" the "mistake", i.e., the usage of "its" was correct before they added an apostrophe to it. Regardless, I've worked as a journalist so I know it's hard to make deadlines and be 100% accurate so if the AP wire journalists got it wrong, I can't blame them too much. Still, the final responsibility falls with their respective editors, so...

Cheers for CNN! Jeers for Yahoo News!

Warren Paint

2007-04-18T12:20:00.000-07:00

Wrong:

...the first reapplication since it’s opening in 1883...

(Spotted by Alex Coles)

Toddlambert.com

2007-03-17T22:50:00.000-07:00

Wrong:

Download RSS Menu
This is one that I use on a daily basis and I love it for it’s simplicity as well.

Mythical Colossal Squid Discovered

2007-02-25T13:52:00.000-08:00

Wrong usage of "it's" in this video: "It's proportions are massive."

problogger.net

2007-02-19T12:10:00.000-08:00

Wrong:

Topic of Writing - Digg has recently broadened the topics that it covers, however it’s roots are technology based...

and also wrong:

...I’ll also pass the digg page link onto a few friends on occasion to help it on it’s way...

Em@ilCRX Welcome Page: fixed!

2007-01-10T17:46:00.000-08:00

Wrong:
Em@ilCRX will collect all of the e-mail from all of your POP e-mail account(s), and using it's reverse DNS based e-mail Rating Engine system...

Photoshopdesign.net

2006-12-11T23:55:00.000-08:00

Wrong:

View this valuable tutorial at it's new location by clicking below.

Central Desktop Blog 2: fixed!

2006-12-07T10:04:00.000-08:00

From 2/3 down in the same article:
And even if you never end up competing with Google, I would certainly be concerned about any monopolistic giant that manipulates markets to it's advantage but publicly declares to not "be evil."

Update @ 12/7/06 10:44 PM:

Ross,
I guess you have absolutely nothing to do? (j/k) Just having some fun with you.
Actually, I should know better as someone who attended Graduate School to study ENGLISH.
The correction has been made.

Central Desktop Blog 1: fixed!

2006-12-06T23:52:00.000-08:00

From the headline:
Google's Silent Monopoly (Or How Much Does Google Pay For It's Own AdWords?)

Update @ 12/7/06 10:00 AM: Headline fixed!

Spamhaus

2006-11-28T10:31:00.000-08:00

Wrong:

Note that Spamhaus only sends email from it's own mail servers whose DNS hostnames verify both forward and reverse.

All editors should know better

2006-11-28T10:29:00.000-08:00

That's it. I'm done. I can't take seeing the word it's used improperly one more time. I understand the source of the confusion, I really do, but it's not that hard to remember that it's is a contraction of it is, never a possessive, as in its main attributes are...

English is evolving, you say... that's true. And I'm okay with certain stylistic changes. For instance, while it's technically incorrect to say, I'm good instead of I'm well, there's actually a clever difference in semantics at work and I'm okay to let that "mistake" stand and allow English to evolve (specifically: well is an adverb qualifiying the verb to be, which modifies a state of being, whereas good is an adjective qualifying the object I, which modifies the person as a static object at a singular moment in time).

However, some mistakes are not a matter of style—they are simply wrong and will always be wrong. I don't care if all 300 million Americans use it's instead of its, using it's as a possessive is still wrong and always will be.

But I didn't start this blog to castigate the common user, for they simply follow the examples they see the most frequently. Thus, I started this blog to list offenders who should know better, and that means editors. Any kind of published work in print or on the web, especially when well-paid editors are involved, is fair game. Personal blogs are mostly immune, unless they are very popular. If you see your web site on the hit list, the finger of blame is on you alone.

There's only one way to get your listing off The It's Hit List—leave us a comment saying the error has been corrected and promise you'll never make the mistake again. Note that this will only grant you immununity of past offenses, not current ones. The hit list readers never sleep.