It's a problem
27 June 2006 @ 20:32 in Life
“If I
were running Apple, I would milk the Macintosh for
all its worth – and get busy on the next great thing.
The PC wars are over. Done. Microsoft won a long time
ago.” STEVE JOBS, FORTUNE MAGAZINE, 1996
I proofed the above ten year-old quote in the magazine today – quite telling, given Apple's current love affair with the iPod – and noted that it contained a mistake. Can you spot it?
(I know that at least two people who read this are or have recently been in the subbing business, so I'm rather hoping they at least will have.)
It's our old friend "its". Now, despite belonging to the generation that wasn't taught English properly, I read (and read; damned English syntax) a lot, particularly in my youth, and thus appear to have simply absorbed a kind of gut feeling for when things are correctly spelled and structured. Start talking about sub-clauses and the subjunctive and I'll nod politely, but, though I can't often tell you why, I can usually spot when things are wrong.
But even as my pen started marking the proof, I hesitated. Unlike with most proofing corrections, which are usually just plain wrong, it suddenly occurred to me that here, both its and it's were legitimate, respectively meaning:
...milk the Macintosh for all the worth it has
...milk the Macintosh for all it is worth
I proofed the above ten year-old quote in the magazine today – quite telling, given Apple's current love affair with the iPod – and noted that it contained a mistake. Can you spot it?
(I know that at least two people who read this are or have recently been in the subbing business, so I'm rather hoping they at least will have.)
It's our old friend "its". Now, despite belonging to the generation that wasn't taught English properly, I read (and read; damned English syntax) a lot, particularly in my youth, and thus appear to have simply absorbed a kind of gut feeling for when things are correctly spelled and structured. Start talking about sub-clauses and the subjunctive and I'll nod politely, but, though I can't often tell you why, I can usually spot when things are wrong.
But even as my pen started marking the proof, I hesitated. Unlike with most proofing corrections, which are usually just plain wrong, it suddenly occurred to me that here, both its and it's were legitimate, respectively meaning:
...milk the Macintosh for all the worth it has
...milk the Macintosh for all it is worth
- Finally tracking down the original quote showed that my instinct had been right, but I'm glad I thought to check.
