The beginning of Tom Friedman’s op-ed piece in yesterday’s NYT:
Israel is facing the biggest erosion of its strategic environment since its founding. It is alienated from its longtime ally Turkey. It’s archenemy Iran is suspected of developing a nuclear bomb. The two strongest states on its border — Syria and Egypt — are being convulsed by revolutions. The two weakest states on its border — Gaza and Lebanon — are controlled by Hamas and Hezbollah.
Five occurrences of the possessive form of the pronoun it here — four spelled correctly (its), plus one it’s. The spelling is corrected on-line (here). The mystery is where in the editorial process it was introduced.
Granted, this mis-spelling is incredibly common, and for good reason, but it’s odd that it came up in the middle of a forest of its correctly spelled (two before it and two after it). Maybe the preceding it is, with auxiliary is, that could have been contracted to it’s played some role in the event. Hard to know.
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