Not exactly. Speed limits are prescriptive only because an authority prescribes them. Stylistic choices are more like home-made “SLOW DOWN, KIDS PLAYING!” signs that suggest propriety but cannot necessarily enforce it.
Insofar as English lacks a regulatory authority, it can be argued to be a descriptive language. Without an official body to say what’s correct, who’s to make that call if not the users themselves?
Even the most popular style guides were written by people who got together, looked at then-current tradition, said to themselves “this is what we see, this is what we think, hmm…” and decided “this is how it ought to be”. But that’s just their opinion. People are no more “incorrect” for using the apostrophe in unpopular ways than you are incorrect for using “don’t” when the APA tells you not to. It just depends on whose suggestion you want to listen to – a few elitist snobs or the other billion speakers.
English is my second language and I very seldom make mistakes like that.
I think it’s because I learned to speak mainly through writing (chatting in the late 90s). When I express myself, I first “write” in my head and then either speak or write.
Native speakers, on the other hand, “speak” in their heads before they either speak or write. Since it sounds the same and sounds are the way the person primarily learned to express himself, “it’s” and “its” & such get conflated.
The Chicago Manual of Style explains apostrophes-as-plurals fairly well. In cases like the ATM’s of the 1990’s, with little a’s and 3’s on the keys, the apostrophe is signalling that you’re moving from letters as letters or numerals back into ordinary writing, or more clearly that the -'s isn’t part of the abbreviation / acronym. In typewriter days, with monospaced fonts, this was more important. In some cases (i’s vs. is) it’s still necessary to prevent confusion. Except in the last case, they recommend against it.
But to answer the OP, it’s two reasons. One, because people simply don’t care. It doesn’t matter enough to bother about getting it right. “You know what I mean, don’t you?” I’ve started having a special apostrophe penalty in my courses: the first error is free (hey, we all make typos), but the second mistake with an apostrophe is a whopping and disproportionate amount of the grade. They gripe, but they learn to get it right.
Two is because the plural possessive is rare, and looks funny (s + apostrophe). There is a trend in style guides to write the plural the same where it is possessive (or other genitive case uses) or not. My favourite example is the “Teachers Union”.* People discovered that they could live without the apostrophe in the plural, and it’s having a demoralizing effect on the singular.
*I have had teachers tell me this is correct because the teachers do not own the union.
The problem is that people think the rules are simple but they are not. It’s like the “i before e except after c” thing. I use more words that violate the rule than obey it.
Just look at “its” for possessive. Someone decided that using “it’s” would confuse people for “it is” so it was declared that dropping the apostrophe in that case was okay.
And on and on and on.
English is just an absolute nightmarish mish-mash of rules that have way too many exceptions to be useful.
So some people just stop caring and give up.
So, to the OP: We don’t remember the rules because the rules don’t work.
Please tell me you’re not serious. Or are you going to make the case that “an apostrophe was dropped” to make other possessive pronouns like hi’s, her’s, your’s, their’s, and our’s?
Possessive pronouns are formed without apostrophes. No exceptions.
Well, mainly because there are no “rules’ in the English language. There are various and differing GUIDELINES, some of which make little sense and are often ignored.
Style guides are called style guides because they damned well aren’t correctness guides.
I’ve told this story before, but it demands to be repeated here.
When I sold my first book, the contract stated that I would use the Chicago Manual of Style. Still wrapped in that first sale glow I ran out and bought one, a lot of money in those days. I tried going through it and figuring out all the hundreds of things I might have to pay attention to that I had never thought about before, and how I would have to modify my habits.
Then they sent me another letter. (Yes, before e-mail people corresponded with words sent on paper that took days to arrive. Go figure.) It contained a sheet of exceptions, where the publisher’s house style conflicted with Chicago style. So now I had two separate and conflicting sets of instructions that had to be looked up word by word.
So I did the only sensible thing. I shelved the book and the letter and just wrote. The book was going to be copyedited anyway. Nobody ever said a word to me about style thereafter.
Grammar can be said to be correct or not. Spelling, usually, can be said to be correct or not. Style is utterly and completely arbitrary from beginning to end. If someone is paying you money they can insist that you follow one style, and your usage becomes correct or not for that one employer. But it doesn’t follow you outside and sit in your lap when you’re on your own, the way grammar and spelling does.
Style is descriptive. Usage is descriptive. Meaning is descriptive. Punctuation is descriptive. Capitalization is descriptive. Individual publishers can try to enforce consistency, and that’s a good thing. But it doesn’t work in the real world. Only a few dedicated specialist copyeditors can ever remember it all. I’ve edited books of manuscripts from a variety of authors. I spent all my energy on getting them to just give me the damn manuscript. Putting several dozen idiosyncratic styles into consistency was a never-ending nightmare - every time I thought I finished I’d find another usage that varied between articles - but that’s the hidden price in the cost of a book. Would the majority of readers even cared whether that work was done? Probably not. But a large enough minority would care very much and loudly, and they’re the ones who always get catered to.
The only style rule is that there is no style rule.
There’s a store near me, called “Two Cousins Beauty Supply.” The overhead sign reads “Two Cousin’s . . . .” Whenever I drive past it I can’t help looking at the sign, as at a bad accident.
You can describe various style guides for writing and their differences, and you can describe the way people write in different contexts, but then you’re not describing a natural phenomenon the way that linguist description is meant to analyze speech—those style guides are artificial conventions, as all writing is. It doesn’t make such descriptions any less useful to someone who is deciding how to write, but it isn’t the same thing as what linguistic description strives to do. Descriptivists and prescriptivists really should have nothing to “argue” about, because they should have two completely different purposes. Punctuation—as part of writing–is an artifice (unlike speech), and so by its nature it’s prescriptivist. The fact that it varies from community to community, and from context to context—or that people don’t really have to follow it all that closely–doesn’t matter.
Yes, but authority wasn’t my point at all. It’s just an example for the very nature of convention. Writing is all about conventions. A society decides (by whatever means, and for whatever reasons) to set speed limits. Just like punctuation, they’re conventions, or artificial constructs (why 65 mph and not 67?) If you decide that you want to drive under the speed limit, you need to know what it is—you can’t just look at how fast the other drivers are going. It will vary from state to state, from freeway to country road—there is no God-determined “correct speed,” but on whatever road you happen to be on, there almost always is a speed limit that someone has determined. It doesn’t go away just because people don’t actually obey it. Of course that doesn’t mean you can’t get where you need to go if you violate the speed limit—nor does it mean that the cops are always going to give you a ticket if you go seven mph faster that what is posted. It’s like putting silverware in the right place when setting a fancy dinner table. People still can use the utensils no matter where they’re placed, but they’re still going to expect them to be in certain places, and those assignments will vary from culture to culture. They’re arbitrary, variable, and often “violated,” but they still exist nevertheless. You can call them “rules” or “guidelines,” but that’s just semantics.
I’ll admit it. While I agree with the rule about not using apostrophes to make plurals, I sometimes bend the rule when dealing with numbers or isolated letters.
“Should An Idiot Abroad be filed under the as or the is?” just doesn’t look right to me. I feel “Should An Idiot Abroad be filed under the a’s or the i’s?” is better.
Incorrectly used apostrophes are apparently so common on the handwritten/hand-painted signs at groceries that Terry Pratchett, in his Discworld novels, came up with a minor character, (a greengrocer, I believe) who even speaks with superfluous apostrophes.
You’re right, “no exceptions” was not accurate. I posted quickly without giving it deep thought.