tarquin wrote:
If I were going on a hunt for incorrect uses of "it's", correcting most to "its" or "it is" has the advantage of shortening the next list of search results.
Except that changing "it's" to "it is" is not a correction. If I saw a change from "it's" to "it is" that made the article read worse, then I would want to change it back.
I certainly wasn't suggesting changing "it's a long way to tipperary".
I assumed as much.
I can't speak for AmEnglish, but in BrEnglish, a contraction such as "it's" is considered a little too informal for a work such as an encyclopedia or a dictionary.
Then I won't change "it is" back to "it's" in an article about Britain (just as I wouldn't use American spelling there -- not that I normally use American spelling, but pretend that I did).
Perhaps it was UK-centric of me to assume that that holds in AmEng too, in which case I apologize (but note that many US wikipedians could do with a healthy dose of culture shock to shake a few us-centric attitudes.)
Fair enough.
-- Toby