It's and Its (Steve's Grammatical Observations)

[ross817]

lol u;r txs mak mi hed hurt

/\ I have actually seen someone post this atrocity of a sentence on facebook once.

[kmwright84]

Yerba mate is so good!

[Daltonizer]

I have never tried yerba mate but you made it look extremely delicious

[KTLAMOOSE]

I could watch Steve all day.  A man after my own heart.

[brumplum]

errr.. It's not arbitrary at all - at least not in this case. But it IS confusing.

Possessive "its" not taking an apostrophe makes complete sense if you consider that ALL possessive pronouns in English are separate structures and don't have apostophes: Yours, His, Hers, Ours, Theirs - would you spell it "Her's" our "Our's"? (I'm actually horrified that some people are beginning to).

Unlike the others, "it's" has a separate meaning so people get confused,

[mabel127p]

I know this has NOTHING to do with the context of your video, but I really love that you used "Maple Leaf Rag" :)

[Plomomedia]

@mabel127p A tree's [maple] leaves. ( ! ) totally coincidental.

[miliscatis]

rules are meant to be applied, aren't they?

[Plomomedia]

@miliscatis and, you could argue, broken!

[LeftyHandedGuns]

YOU ARE A GOD AMONG MEN.

And you are cute as all hell.

Marry me. But that makes me sound creepy. But if this were real life, marry me.

[nixthetiger]

Its is the same as ours, hers, his. "His keys",  "Its keys" (as in keyboard.) It's weird to me that the use of such a tiny mark would cause such confusion.

[apilcer]

I'm all for bringing back "'tis"

[DevanWastesTime]

If you should find the time and the want, you should consider doing a video on the proper uses of "then" and "than". I'm always misusing them, I'm sure...

[fliggahj]

He's saying the problem is is that people don't know when to use apostrophe's with its. Now I could care less on this topic but irregardless to say, its quite important.

[Plomomedia]

haha!

[brnmbrns]

@fliggahj Gold!

[itiselizabeth]

Food for thought :)

[iamacyborg]

Songs about masturbation aren't very "PG".

[Plomomedia]

that's what it's about? i never knew... oh well, if it can make FCC's clearance for public radio....

[iamacyborg]

@Plomomedia "You want it all but you can't have it --- it's in your face, but you can't grab it!"

Yeah, you're right though. Might not make the "G" version, I suppose.

Awesome song, in any case.

[mjloca]

I don't understand why you use that example. "It's leaves" makes as much sense as "you's leaves". To me it is clear that you have to use a possessive ("its", "your"...).

[Plomomedia]

of course, but it's not clear to everyone.

[mjloca]

i suppose it's the sort of mistake a non-native speaker cannot make; for us there are many other things that are more difficult ;-)

thank you for your videos!

[Plomomedia]

If you have suggestions for video topics, anything that is giving you difficulty, let me know and maybe I can help.

[KudoFan32]

Sorry for butting in, but I'm having a hard time choosing between American and British English. I can't even tell which one I'm using at the moment.

[Plomomedia]

I think Scottish is the most beautiful dialect, personally. Nothing wrong with diversification though...

[jacobromu]

fuck is probalby not PG

[Plomomedia]

this brings up an important point that i hope to make in a future video. the various uses of "fuck" and their varying levels of acceptability in youth culture. I believe that "to fuck something up" is much milder a usage than "I want to fuck your sister."

[lissahxox]

@Plomomedia please do this one!

[Plomomedia]

@lissahxox which one??

[Plomomedia]

ahhh yes i might do that. could be funny. i'm sure there's some videos out there now that already explore the word. i'll have to do some research to see what's been said so far.

[RuaridhHunter]

@Plomomedia I like how your videos are about grammer and yet you don't use capital letters in your posts. Bahahahaha!

[SpecOps82]

great video man