Its great!

Did you spot the mistake in the title?

It should have been It's great!

If you didn't, perhaps it's not surprising. The two little words its and it's are often confused.

If you try to say those two words out, you'll realise they sound exactly the same. And that's the reason why, in writing, mistakes such as the following are common:

SemiAccurate - 4 November 2012

So what's the remedy? The first step to remember that it's is the contraction of it is or it has, whereas its is the possessive of it:

1) It's a beautiful day.
2) The dog is wagging its tail.
3) The company has sacked one of its employees.
4) He says that it's okay to buy the car.
5) It's been raining all day.

And then when in doubt, write out the full form:

1a) It is a beautiful day.
4a) He says that it is okay to buy the car.
5a) It has been raining all day.

Hanged or hung?

Is hung the past participle of hang?

In a sense, yes, but that's only half correct.

In English, most verbs have only one past tense form regardless of their senses. For example, the past tense of run is ran and that's the only past tense form. This fact is extended wrongly to hang so that we get the following misconception:

Base form	Past tense	Past Participle
hang	hanged	hung

Consequently, we frequently see mistakes such as the following:

(1) *She hanged the clothes out to dry.
(2) *The man was said to have hung himself.
(3) *He hanged out with some friends.
(4) *I panicked when my computer hanged.

But the word hang behaves differently from other verbs. Depending on the meaning, the verb has two past tense forms instead of the usual one.

If hang is used to refer to kill by hanging, the past tense and past participle forms are both hanged.

For all other senses, hung is the past tense and past participle of hang. Thus, the correct representation of hang is as follows:

Base form	Meaning	Past tense	Past participle
hang	to kill by hanging	hanged	hanged
hang	all other senses of hang	hung	hung

The erroneous sentences above are corrected as follows:

(1a) She hung the clothes out to dry.
(2a) The man was said to have hanged himself.
(3a) He hung out with some friends.
(4a) I panicked when my computer hung.

Wrong use of "that"

Can we use that every time we use which?

We've discussed this in the post That vs which and the answer is No.

In the screengrab below from Slashdot, the writer used that in a non-restrictive relative clause. The correct relative pronoun is which.

Slashdot - 26 October 2012