Very good! Thank you for such useful English grammar lesson! Now I can save some money for the English courses.... or not? ;-) Greetings from Czechia Winca -----Original Message----- From: police-bounces@mailman.xmission.com [mailto:police-bounces@mailman.xmission.com]On Behalf Of Fred Berthelot Sent: Monday, May 19, 2003 9:20 PM To: Maggie White; police@mailman.xmission.com Subject: RE: [Police] Undergarments Thanks for pointing that out Maggie. It's one of my biggest pet peeves as well. I know there are a lot of members on the list whose first language is not English, so they are excused. It irks me though that most Americans (and I assume other Anglican natives) have very poor writing skills, especially considering that most of them only speak one language. This is totally off topic, so stop reading if you don't feel like getting a grammar lesson: It's = It is Its = belonging to "it" There = location, as in "There it is," or pronoun "There must be another way." They're = They are Their = belonging to "they" You're = You are Your = belonging to "you" Whose = belonging to "who" (actually, to WHOM) Who's = Who is 's after a word = possessive ("Fred's email is pompous"). If the word ends in "s," you would typically add an ' after the word, but no "s" (The bus' wheels are flat). 's can also be a conjunction of "is" (Fred's a pompous grammar Nazi) or "has" (Fred's got to stop). Adding an "s" at the end of a word makes it plural (These grammar emails are annoying). Though "were" is the past tense plural of "to be," it is also used in the conditional sense: "If only half of this were true..." Not "was!" It's "I should have," not "I should of" It's "through," not "thru." It's "night," not "nite." There are others, but I've ranted enough... Happy grammar everyone. Fred P.S. English is not my first language. And feel free to scold me if you find any grammar or spelling mistakes in this email. _______________________________________________ Police mailing list Police@mailman.xmission.com http://mailman.xmission.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/police