And you hand me the perfect example of the serial comma being a Good Thing.

This was Nutty's quote in favour of it. It is in fact the perfect example of why the serial comma is not a good thing, as
a. It's not difficult to work out the intended meaning, and
2. It's hilarious.

Patiently waits for Fay's explaination of the difference between "it's" and "its".

Patiently waits for Fay's explaination of the difference between "it's" and "its".

It's a pronoun, so the rules work differently in its case.

If you'd asked me, I'd have guessed that New Jersey was smaller than Washington DC.

Huh. Interesting. NJ is a state, DC is a city. I'd bet that NJ contains at least one or two cities bigger than DC. (edit: and after quickly looking up some numbers, I think I'd be wrong about that. Newark is smaller than I'd thought.) (And I'd also bet that I could name just about nothing on a map of the UK. Well, I know where Wales and Scotland and Northern Ireland are, and I've got a vague idea where London is, and I think I could also roughly place Stonehenge and Dover.)

DC is actually a somewhat confusing area of US geography. It's not actually in any state -- it's the city of Washington, District of Columbia, where the city and District boundaries are exactly the same.

throws things at Tom

t Secret apostrophe font

Dude, see what Amych said about the "99% of the time" business? I was trying to go with that, because poor Omnis is clearly letting the fact that he knows there are occasional exceptions to the rule make him feel that there's no guessing what the whacky apostrophe might do next - when in fact, it's pretty damn consistent! So I wasn't going to make it any more complicated than it needed to be! Do not fill the poor guy with fear and loathing of the apostrophe!

But if you want my explanation for WHY there's an it's/its issue, my teacherly take on that is: shit happens.

Tra la la la.

whistles

Nice weather we're having lately.

Huh. Interesting. NJ is a state, DC is a city.

See, without knowing anything of American geography, I guess that in the back of my head I'd still be thinking of Jersey, which is teeny tiny itsy bitsy wee, and where I have been, and that that would vaguely colour my idea of how big New Jersey might be. Well, that and the fact that I've only happened across it being referred to disparagingly by New Yorkers, and had the impression that it was some wrong-side-of-the-tracks place near New York. Or is that somewhere different? Probably. I know I could google, but I'm going to go have a shower. Honestly. Any minute now...

Patiently waits for Fay's explaination of the difference between "it's" and "its".

Dude, you really want to taunt the Queen of the Jetlag People?

You're brave.

Well, that and the fact that I've only happened across it being referred to disparagingly by New Yorkers, and had the impression that it was some wrong-side-of-the-tracks place near New York. Or is that somewhere different? Probably.

Heh. That is NJ, but only part of it. North Jersey is suburbs of NYC. Central Jersey is a weird mix of farms and old industrial and a few cities. South Jersey I know almost nothing about, actually. And New Jersey also has a few hundred miles of Atlantic coastline, the Jersey Shore. (AFAIK, it's the only bit of coastline in the country that's commonly referred to as "shore" rather than "beach," and I've never seen a good explanation for why.) Fourth-smallest state in the country. And, at the time that I had to learn all this stuff as a 10-year-old growing up there, it had the ninth-largest population, thus making it the most densely populated state. And almost all of that population is in the northern part.

Also, home to a good number of sports teams that have "New York" in their names. And the Jersey Devil, who haunts the Pine Barrens. Which are in South Jersey! OK, I feel better now that I remembered something that's there.

Well, that and the fact that I've only happened across it being referred to disparagingly by New Yorkers, and had the impression that it was some wrong-side-of-the-tracks place near New York. Or is that somewhere different?

It's the same one, but it's also a wrong-side-of-the-tracks place near Philadelphia. In between the two it is the setting for House. You need an entire state to hold that much wrong-sideness.

Actually, if you've ever watched The Sopranos, that's pretty much everything you need to know about how most of the country thinks of North/Central Jersey. That and pollution. (In the mid-eighties or so, some hypodermic needles started washing up on the Jersey shore.) I totally confused many of my friends in college by insisting that NJ corn and tomatoes were better than the ones from the rest of the country -- they had no idea anyone was growing anything there.