#literact

Greater good homepage:

https://greatergood.com/

click to help feed animals:

http://www.theanimalrescuesite.com/clickToGive/ars/home 

click to help veterans in need:

http://www.theanimalrescuesite.com/clickToGive/vet/home

click to help end world hunger:

https://thehungersite.greatergood.com/clickToGive/ths/home

click to help fund breast cancer:

https://thehungersite.greatergood.com/clickToGive/bcs/home

click to help a child on the autism spectrum:

https://thehungersite.greatergood.com/clickToGive/aut/home

click to support Alzheimer research:

https://thehungersite.greatergood.com/clickToGive/alz/home

click to help fund diabetes research:

https://thehungersite.greatergood.com/clickToGive/dbs/home

click to buy a book for a child:

https://thehungersite.greatergood.com/clickToGive/lit/home

click to help save rain-forests:

https://thehungersite.greatergood.com/clickToGive/trs/home

It’s overused. It’s lazy. It’s something that should be stopped.

It’s 12:15 p.m. on a gray October day in 2018 and I must warn you that this is a blog post about grammar.

Specifically, about what I just did in the first line of this post: I started it with the word “It’s.”

“It’s” is a linguistic plague that is affecting all publications.

“It’s” is lackadaisical writing.

It’s true about “It’s”: If I have to read another article that begins with “It’s,” it’s unclear what will happen, but it’s not going to be good.

It’s time that I show you some examples of ledes (journospeak for the first paragraph of an article) that begin with “It’s,” which I have quickly cherry-picked from various publications excluding the New Yorker because I am out of free articles.