It’s is it is. Its isn’t it is.
Well, yes. That’s what contractions are. Lazy English, or rather, informal English.
You’re going to have to be more explicit here. Because I can’t figure out what you’re trying to say; it seems like you’re propounding the myth that the possessive 's is a contraction of his.
Can you try to say this again with different words?
The style guides I use (and I’m puzzled as to whether they claim to be of “renown”) prefer Jones’s as the possessive.
I like that, too. Cleaner and simpler.
When you are done tilting at this windmill, can you please pit using “of” in place of have? I see that all the time, would of, could of, should of. I just want to scream “no you dumbfuck, it’s would have, could have, should have!”
I’ll do that when I start finding too many examples of it on the SDMB.
As do I.
Thanks.
- A guy named Jones
P.S. If there was one than more Jones, it was the Joneses’ cat.
Yes, we would, because that would introduce ambiguity and confusion.
Again, terrible idea, because it would introduce ambiguity.
You know what pisses me off? People whose language study ended with their eighth grade English class who think they know fuck-all about linguistics and proceed to pompously announce what’s “right” and what’s “lazy.”
If that went over your head, I just called you an ignorant idiot.
If we can handle that ambiguity in speech, we should be able to handle it in writing. As I pointed out, the other Germanic languages don’t need an apostrophe to go with their genitive Ss. And at one time, English didn’t need it either. It was introduced through misconception and hypercorrection.
Spoken speech != written speech. People often confused them as a common entity. They’re not. They’re as dissimilar as, say, walking and driving a car. Speech is natural, it’s something we’re programmed to do. Written language is something we’ve invented, something artificial… Which is why IMO you can make much more cogent arguments for standardization in written language than in spoken.
This is just non sequitur sloganeering.
There are plenty of cases in which written language mirrors the ambiguity of spoken language. In both cases, ambiguity is resolved by context. There’s no reason to believe that this couldn’t be accommodated by elimination of the genitive apostrophe.
You also ignored my other arguments:
- English has long had a genitive S, but the apostrophe was introduced at a much later stage.
- Other Germanic languages with a genitive S do not use an apostrophe in writing.
Point taken. The ambiguity and confusion will be created especially for the first generation of people who make the switch. If I see “bunch’s” right now, my brain tells me to expect it to function as a possessive. When the following words don’t bear that out, I’m forced to mentally backtrack.
It’s the same line of reasoning one uses in determining when to hyphenate compound modifiers, for example. You want the reader to be able to follow along in the sentence and correctly anticipate the general structure of what comes next. When that doesn’t happen, you’re creating impediments to comprehension.
Show me where I called it wrong, moron. There’s nothing wrong with common usage, but it got to be common usage because of laziness in how we speak the language. Shove your snarky bullshit up your ass.
Language has rules. But the rules are arrived at by consensus.
The rules of written English say that the sentence “Monday’s are the worst day of the week” is incorrect. But suppose enough people broke that rule. At some point, using an apostrophed s to form the plural of Mondays would become the correct rule.
It’s the same reason why the correct plural of beer is beers and the correct plural of deer is deer. Because that’s the way we do it. And it could change. In a hundred years, maybe we’ll write there are twenty-four beer in a case or a dozen deers in a herd. (True fact: the correct plural of eye used to be eyen. But enough people incorrectly used the word eyes that it eventually became accepted as correct.)
“Laziness” is not a scientifically valid description of linguistic phenomena.
Ah. Would you prefer “humanoid predisposition to inexactitude in the expellation of verbal communications”? Cuz that’s like all fucked up and whatever. And shit.
That’s how language evolves, brah.
Not to pick on this, but what authority says that apostrophe-s for “has” is technically improper? I’m familiar with a lot of stylistic and grammar proscriptions, but that’s one I don’t recalling seeing. I’ve never heard anyone have a problem with a sentence like “It’s been a long time since I’ve seen you” or “John’s been away for the week”
You forgot to call him an “ignorant idiot”. Oh, wait, that was Shot From Gun’s.
I find you’re particularly problematic. For some reason, I inherently type it for your about half the time. I only catch it on a reread, and occasionally I don’t catch it at all. I’m still trying to find the balance between proofreading everything, and thus taking an hour on a two paragraph response, and just typing how I speak. And the latter is winning out.
Also, if I notice a typo after I’ve submitted, I actually have been intentionally flaring up my OCD and not correcting it unless I think understanding is actually impeded. Though I’ll occaisonally splurge.
Confession of someone who types perfectly and is never caught by Gaudere: I type your instead of you’re all the time too. The difference is I spot it and correct it instantly without taking much more time than if I left it alone.
I’m really, really thankful that written communication is almost entirely done by computer these days. My handwriting is atrocious, and god help me if I’m writing in pen at any speed. I have a bad habit of only seeing mistakes after I make them, not before.