Xref: utzoo sci.lang:2322 comp.lang.c:10203
Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!portal!cup.portal.com!doug-merritt
From: doug-merritt@cup.portal.com
Newsgroups: sci.lang,comp.lang.c
Subject: Re: But what about kernel printfs?
Message-ID: <5553@cup.portal.com>
Date: 17 May 88 20:41:07 GMT
References: <12360@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu> <4659@ihlpf.ATT.COM> <941@cresswell.quintus.UUCP> <2219@ncr-sd.SanDiego.NCR.COM>
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Greg Noel writes:
>The one that grates on me is the abuse of "it's."  The use of the apostrophe
>is perhaps the only rule in English that has no exceptions -- I certainly
>don't know of any others.  There's no excuse for someone intellegent enough
>to program a computer to make a mistake using it.

Sure, it grates. But there certainly *is* an excuse...the two words
"its" and "it's" are pronounced exactly the same way, and unlike other
homophones, the misspelling is a question of punctuation rather than of
alphabet. There's less visual distinction to use for error correcting
feedback than there is with, say, "for" versus "four". I make sure of
the right spelling by mentally using the long form "it is"; so my
mnemonic is: if I can say "it is", I put in the apostrophe, otherwise
I leave it out.

If I am really rushed, hung over, disturbed, etc, then I may get sloppy
and fail to apply that rule. The resulting mistake seems no different
to me than any other kind of mistake, such as an error in mental arithmetic.
Some people get annoyed at that, too. I'm not sure I see why; to understand
all is to forgive all, no? To err is human...
	Doug
---
      Doug Merritt        ucbvax!sun.com!cup.portal.com!doug-merritt
                      or  ucbvax!eris!doug (doug@eris.berkeley.edu)
                      or  ucbvax!unisoft!certes!doug