An e-mail sent by a member of one of Dallas’ more well-known families (think ornithology) made its way to me over the weekend. It asks people to sign the petition to save Ross Avenue. I sympathize and was thinking of signing, but then I saw the group’s slogan: “Let’s preserve Dallas’ history and the name of one of its’ oldest streets, Ross Avenue.” The first two apostrophes? Solid work. But the third got away from them. So Im’ still undecided.
Is Ross Ave really endangered? The whole situation is just so painfully stupid on so many levels that I’m really having a hard time committing any energy to the massive amount of lunacy taking place right now.
The first rule of blogging is never to spell “its” without an apostrophe. It is the bane of my existence.
And what about Dallas, Metroplex, Texas, and others where the apostrophe is silent to broadcasters who don’t find it strange to talk about “Dallas best,” “Texas biggest,” or the Metroplex longest drive to the supermarket.
So they used the apostrophe correctly, but you still didn’t like it?
I’m confused.
No, they kinda didn’t. Shouldn’t be an apostrophe on “its”.
If one has followed the progression of this snowballing basket case of hapless hype, here’s one irony of note: Wick Allison’s reasoning made absolute sense and Jim Schutze in effect completely agrees from another vantage. (The last time those planets aligned, I was dating cheerleaders and Laura Miller was a rogue reporter and George W. Bush was yelling across a rowdy crowd, ‘Another round on me.’) Make note of their sane logic in hopes of making sense. Instead of panhandling for political capital….opening Pandora’s box in the wake of pandering renames.
As witnessed in the unlikely back draft reaction to last week’s averted demolition of once Stanley Marcus’ house, contrary to popular myth, Dallas is not a blank sheet frontier town with no history. It has much that has been all but lost, not the least of which is its locally indigenous Mexican roots which are ironically further plowed under when they go ignored in the name of well-intentioned national figure tributes.
It’s not wrong to put an apostrophe in the word that means “it is.”
It’s wrong to put an apostrophe in the word that is a possessive.
There’s no such word as: its’
It’s either “it’s” or “its.”
Got it?
Don’t worry too much about the apostrophes, DISD grads won’t know the difference.
INCORRECT: “…one of its’ oldest streets…”
CORRECT: “one of its’ oldest s’treets’…”
All S’s’ must be apos’trophized.
I really do not get it.
LOL @ Mike! It’s funny because it’s true.
Let’s cast off the shackles of the old: I like “its'” as a new way to indicate the possessive of “it”; we still need “it’s” for the contraction of “it is,” but it has always thrown me off that “its” is the only possessive (that I can think of) that doesn’t use an apostrophe. Maybe those folks are onto something.
Topham, how about “their” and “our” and “my”?
aints? anybody?
Would one of the august wordsmiths of the D Empire like to rule on this grammatical debate? It’s (not “its”) up to you.
There’s no debate.
Itzy bitzy spiders know it’s about Ross Avenue. Its place in Dallas history.
Chavez ‘task force’ http://www.cesarchaveztaskforce.com/ has ‘its’ own problems:
“Ross Avenue was the gathering place for the largest Civil Right march in Texas history! From 10:00 AM to well past 2:00 PM on April 9, 2006, Ross Avenue was filled with people walking most of it’s length downtown, peacefully filling the street from sidewalk to sidewalk. It is estimated over 500,000 people were present in the march. Most were Hispanic.”
@ dazzling urbanite: Good catch. So the two sides can agree on at least one thing, eh?
Ornithology- its’ the study of Jessica Simpson’s long lost brother, Orenthal James’ Simpson. Hope that clears it up.
Better make it Save the Tollway now. These people are unbelievable. Pretty soon it will be LBJ Frwy. http://www.wfaa.com/video/index.html?nvid=273748
@Gwyon — Hmmm. “Their,” “our,” and “my” … uh … let me rephrase. Its is the only possessive ending in “s” (that I can think of) that doesn’t use an apostrophe.
Topham, how about “ours” and “yours”?
@Gywon – I give.
The “its'” in question has been fixed on the main page of the site. Thank you for the grammar refresher course. It’s the finer points in life that make a difference.