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It's is a contraction that replaces it is or it has (see apostrophe). [61] Its is the possessive determiner corresponding to it, meaning "belonging to it". Standard: It's time to eat! (it is time) Standard: It's been nice getting to meet you. (it has been) Standard: My cell phone has poor reception because its antenna is broken.
It has been so for centuries, and even the most conservative grammarians have followed this practice. [ 16 ] [c] Regarding the word "and", Fowler's Modern English Usage states, "There is a persistent belief that it is improper to begin a sentence with And , but this prohibition has been cheerfully ignored by standard authors from Anglo-Saxon ...
In the English language, there are grammatical constructions that many native speakers use unquestioningly yet certain writers call incorrect. Differences of usage or opinion may stem from differences between formal and informal speech and other matters of register, differences among dialects (whether regional, class-based, generational, or other), difference between the social norms of spoken ...
The development of ain't for the various forms of be, have, will and do occurred independently, at different times. The use of ain't for the forms of be was established by the mid-18th century and for the forms of have by the early 19th century. The use of ain't is a continuing subject of controversy in English.
Sue has been to the beach. (as above; Sue went to the beach at some time before now) Sue has been on the beach. (use of been simply as part of be; she spent time on the beach) The sentences above with the present perfect can be further compared with alternatives using the simple past, such as: My father went to Japan.
A aggravate – Some have argued that this word should not be used in the sense of "to annoy" or "to oppress", but only to mean "to make worse". According to AHDI, the use of "aggravate" as "annoy" occurs in English as far back as the 17th century. In Latin, from which the word was borrowed, both meanings were used. Sixty-eight percent of AHD4's usage panel approves of its use in "It's the ...
A misnomer is a name that is incorrectly or unsuitably applied. [1] Misnomers often arise because something was named long before its correct nature was known, or because an earlier form of something has been replaced by a later form to which the name no longer suitably applies.
The Oxford use of ‑ize does not extend to the spelling of words not traced to the Greek ‑izo, ‑izein suffixes. One group of such words is those ending in ‑lyse , such as analyse , paralyse and catalyse , which come from the Greek verb λύω , lyo , the perfective (aorist) stem of which is ‑lys- : for these, ‑lyse is the more ...