[jerf]

It could be in the process of regularizing. There's no particular reason why "it's" can't be both things. Language changes.

One I've witnessed in my lifetime is "different than" vs. "different to". I was taught the first one. The latter sounds wrong to me, which is why I notice I'm hearing it more and more. (Note I have phrased this subjectively; I'm not saying it is wrong. I'm generally a descriptive grammarian. But it does sound wrong to me.) It may be a dialect thing, in which case my dialect seems to be shifting. Languages change.

[lukecameron]

This (and others who pointed out the regularisation effect) might actually help me to accept it more. It's more constructive to think "grammar is slowly changing due to a weird rule that was difficult for even native speakers to remember" vs "people keep spelling this word wrong and they should just be less sloppy about it". I think once you internally accept a change in language, it starts looking/sounding less wrong over time.

[jerf]

When I was in high school, I read a lot of the "classics" of my own free will. I could read pretty comfortably into the 18th century, and I could understand most 17th century English.

I remember thinking at the time that I live to be an average 70, then at the rate of change I could see in books from various centuries, I should be able to witness some changes myself in my lifetime. And I mean changes in "real", core language, not merely the rapid churn of local dialects and slang. (Which the Internet has greatly accelerated. I suspect in general it pulls us all together towards a more "core" English, but it also means an incredible proliferation of local slang communities.)

Now that I'm 40, I can say that I'm definitely starting to notice it. It's not a fast process on a day-by-day basis, and it's hard to notice the small differences at first, or assume they're dialect differences (and in some cases they are, after all). But the change is definitely happening. I would be unsurprised within my lifetime that there's only "it's" and it has two distinct meanings, and that it will be officially recognized by dictionaries as such.

The "hacker" style of quoting [1] also seems to be generally accepted. I've on several occasions done something like 'Have you ever said "It's not a tumor!"?' and I'm yet to get jumped by a grammar nazi for the two punctuation marks like that, too. I suspect that'll never quite become the official style (a bit on the complicated side), but it doesn't seem to bother people much.

[1]: http://catb.org/jargon/html/writing-style.html

[mises]

I think people can accept change in language as it pertains to new contexts, but I really don't like it when people just don't bother (especially with misuse by native speakers). This is especially true for those of us who don't correctly parse poorly-written language. I normally read very quickly, but when something isn't right, it's jarring and I have to go back, scan it several times, and figure out what it means.

I've always found it odd that in a place like HN, most are pedantic in their use of every language but English.

[enobrev]

That reminds me of how in the Northeast they say "Quarter of [hour]" whereas in the Midwest it's "Quarter after [hour]". The former confuses me every time, with my immediate thought being "is 'of' before or after"? My wife, who is from the Northeast, just confirmed it's "before"

Edit: I mistyped my comment as "after". The replies are justified.

[thescriptkiddie]

I'm pretty sure that "quarter of" means 15 minutes before, not after. But confusingly, I've also heard people day just "quarter" (no "of") to mean 15 minutes after.

[Dylan16807]

"quarter of" is easy.

Try asking people what "half three" means.

[smackmybishop]

Your wife is wrong, it means "before."