Well, I’ve learned my lesson.  I saw an ad with a glaring mistake in it this week and I contacted the marketing department of the company to explain that its’ (Its and then an apostrophe) is never a word.  When I see a mistake like that in a headline, I just cringe.  Its’ is simply not a word in the English language.

Just to be certain we all understand:

It’s is a contraction for “it is.”

Its is the possessive pronoun – The chameleon changed its color.

BUT, never is ITS’ a word – NEVER.  It’s like writing “I cant’ do that” or “Wel’l go tomorrow.”  It just makes me nuts that marketing professionals let these things slip past them so often.

Anyway, I assumed, of course, that this company would like to know that their headline was wrong – very wrong - and that, if they paid an agency to write this headline, they should get their money back or at least have the ad reprinted.

What I found out was, the company did not even care about the mistake.  They thought I WAS SOLICITING WORK by hunting down mistakes in ads and contacting companies about them. 

In 20 years as a professional writer, I have never before written a note about the mistakes I see but, every time I see a printed ad with an error in it or a sign that people paid good money for with a misspelling, it just makes my blood boil.  I thought maybe the company would like to know that, because of the misspelling, anyone who notices this will consider their company unprofessional as well.

I learned my lesson:

Remember: It’s or its – BUT NEVER ITS’.

Leave your comment

Name
Comment
Enter the code from the image