Ha - he joined the old ship long enough ago that even if he'd joined as a newborn, he'd have passed the stage of toddlerhood by now! So I can safely say he isn't a toddler.
He's recently posted on the new Ukraine Orthodox thread - clearly does not know the difference between "its" and "it's", but let's not allow that thread to be derailed.
He's recently posted on the new Ukraine Orthodox thread - clearly does not know the difference between "its" and "it's", but let's not allow that thread to be derailed.
@Gee D, Mark Betts is obviously a moron of vaguely trollish silhouette - surely there are aspects of substance to take issue with? To snipe on the basis of a typo that anybody could make results in it looking like you're straining to belong with the popular Shipmates by picking on an apparently unpopular peer. Is schoolyard clique-stalking really how you want to roll?
Many moons ago on either this or the then-current Ukrainian Church thread there was a dreadful and boring digression into proper grammar. In the course of that, Mr Betts proclaimed his superiority in grammar over some other poster. This was really a reference back to that.
No it wouldn't. You are decreasing his chances of ever becoming a constructive member by appealing to his worst instincts. If you had really taken the hint, or understood its intent, you would have said nothing more.
The whole it's/its thing is counter-intuitative anyway.
Normally we'd use the "'s" it to imply possession: Jim's guitar is the guitar belonging to Jim.
So it does make logical sense to imagine that "it's" means that the thing belongs to it.
Also I note that my phone auto corrects its.
So an easy and understandable mistake to make.
I noticed you were trying to derail the new Ukraine Orthodox thread Mr Cheesy. I don't like swearing on these boards, but in your case it's appropriate - Fuck Off!
The whole it's/its thing is counter-intuitative anyway.
Normally we'd use the "'s" it to imply possession: Jim's guitar is the guitar belonging to Jim.
So it does make logical sense to imagine that "it's" means that the thing belongs to it.
Also I note that my phone auto corrects its.
So an easy and understandable mistake to make.
It is. It's of course because apostrophes are only used to create the possessive forn of nouns, not pronouns.
Well if someone explains that "its" is just like "his" then it is easier to understand. But, y'know, it is a thing you either know or you don't, and easy to overlook.
Well yes, but prattling about minutiae gives the Hell Hosts something to get irritated about.
I'm naturally given to two sins, well, one, because they're both actually Pride - grammar Nazism and feeling superior to people who can't spell, punctuate, who use "of" for "have" etc. This is a Bad Thing; one of the Seven Deadly things. And of course the moment you make a slip yourself you fit yourself for the Hypocrites' Circle.
I find grammar and spelling errors interesting, because often there is some logic behind them. I find myself sometimes typing the wrong 'there', not because I don't know the difference, but because my fingers go into autopilot when I'm tired, I hear the word in my head, and default to the one which must be the highest frequency one, the one I have typed most often in my life - 'their.' Which, incidentally, I once spelt as 'thier' in a spelling test of 100 words in secondary school. It was my one error - I came top with 99% - and everyone thought it was funny that I got the easiest word wrong. But I was doing the 'i before e' logic, and also reasoning that 'ier' is a common combination of letters in words, whereas 'eir' is not.
I agree that adding an apostrophe to the possessive 'its' is far more logical. I picked up grammar rules pretty quickly as a kid, from observation, and this was the one that took me longest to realise. We once had a very pedantic history teacher at school who made a huge deal of telling us all as a class how stupid it is to put an apostrophe in 'its,' when there is a very logical reason why we shouldn't, and then asked if any of us was clever enough to know the reason for it. We all stared blankly at him, and eventually I put up my hand and gave the reason I used in my own thinking (which I knew wasn't a good reason!): 'Because the "it is" contraction has already taken it.' Not the right answer! His answer, which he was so clearly proud of announcing, was 'Because it's a pronoun!' And I was thinking 'Yeah, but that would only make proper sense if we had Is for my, and yous for your, and shes for her and wes for our and theys for their. And ones for one's. How come one gets an apostrophe, huh?'
The apostrophe in one's is hotly debated, I gather.
Interesting. Never come across that debate, but I guess removing the apostrophe might be a popular idea among those who like to try to make language more logical. Is it debated in the UK, or more a US thing? I think 'it' is a bit of an odd one out among the conventional list of pronouns, as they primarily apply to people. It is the only one which simply uses its pronoun form with an 's' added to form a possessive determiner. So it's easy to pull it apart into a full word with an 's' added, same as the apostrophe possessives, which you can't do with the other pronouns that have had their entire form changed.
Just took a look at the OED, because I was curious about history of usage of 'its', to see if it used to have an apostrophe, which would make sense to me - and yes, it seems it often did, from the 1500s to the 1800s.
Just took a look at the OED, because I was curious about history of usage of 'its', to see if it used to have an apostrophe, which would make sense to me - and yes, it seems it often did, from the 1500s to the 1800s.
There was very little consistency in English spelling during that period.
Which is what (for me) is so daft about being picky over spelling and grammar; these rules only emerged to deliberately simplify the language.
The language has moved on, but for some reason we are being forced to use English grammar as if we were early 20th century upper-class schoolboys.
Incidentally, possessives like my, your, his, her, its, etc., are classified as adjectives in the OED. We learnt them as determiners when I studied more recently, though as a kid we learnt them as pronouns.
Now there is a distinction between possessive determiners - my, your, his, her, etc. - which I guess are a form of adjective, as they modify a noun, and possessive pronouns, which exist in their own right - mine, yours, his (his is the same in both forms), hers, etc. It occurs to me that 'it' doesn't have this kind of possessive pronoun. You can say 'The cake belongs to her - it's hers,' but you can't (or at least don't) say 'The cake belongs to it - it's its.'
Just took a look at the OED, because I was curious about history of usage of 'its', to see if it used to have an apostrophe, which would make sense to me - and yes, it seems it often did, from the 1500s to the 1800s.
There was very little consistency in English spelling during that period.
Which is what (for me) is so daft about being picky over spelling and grammar; these rules only emerged to deliberately simplify the language.
The language has moved on, but for some reason we are being forced to use English grammar as if we were early 20th century upper-class schoolboys.
Yes, I know about the lack of consistency - though interesting that this continued past the publication of Johnson's dictionary, which of course standardised spelling. My point was more that it shows the logical inclination to use an apostrophe, which wouldn't happen with possessives that have taken on a completely new form, such as 'my' and 'her'. No apostrophes in their history.
Just took a look at the OED, because I was curious about history of usage of 'its', to see if it used to have an apostrophe, which would make sense to me - and yes, it seems it often did, from the 1500s to the 1800s.
There was very little consistency in English spelling during that period.
Which is what (for me) is so daft about being picky over spelling and grammar; these rules only emerged to deliberately simplify the language.
The language has moved on, but for some reason we are being forced to use English grammar as if we were early 20th century upper-class schoolboys.
Yes, I know about the lack of consistency - though interesting that this continued past the publication of Johnson's dictionary, which of course standardised spelling. My point was more that it shows the logical inclination to use an apostrophe, which wouldn't happen with possessives that have taken on a completely new form, such as 'my' and 'her'. No apostrophes in their history.
I bet greengrocers' apostraphes have been used for a very long time.
Indeed, I suspect the rules were deliberately introduced to separate the "properly educated" from the oily riff-raff.
Another occasion where things would be so much simpler if we all spoke Welsh.
Do you speak Welsh? I can sing the first verse of the Welsh national anthem accurately, but I don't know anything about its grammar system. I tend to think Italian would be a good universal language. Its phonology is so consistent in its spelling. Much less diagnosis of dyslexia in Italy, apparently - not that it doesn't exist in the same prevalence as in the UK, but it simply causes much less of a barrier. According to some research by Uta Frith, at least, but it makes sense logically to me.
Another occasion where things would be so much simpler if we all spoke Welsh.
Do you speak Welsh? I can sing the first verse of the Welsh national anthem accurately, but I don't know anything about its grammar system. I tend to think Italian would be a good universal language. Its phonology is so consistent in its spelling. Much less diagnosis of dyslexia in Italy, apparently - not that it doesn't exist in the same prevalence as in the UK, but it simply causes much less of a barrier. According to some research by Uta Frith, at least, but it makes sense logically to me.
I'm studying it. I think Karl is too.
Him/his etc are the same word - but then there are many different kinds of Welsh, so they seem to get over the "Grammar Nazi" problem by just accepting that different people speak it differently with different levels of formality.
Just took a look at the OED, because I was curious about history of usage of 'its', to see if it used to have an apostrophe, which would make sense to me - and yes, it seems it often did, from the 1500s to the 1800s.
There was very little consistency in English spelling during that period.
Which is what (for me) is so daft about being picky over spelling and grammar; these rules only emerged to deliberately simplify the language.
The language has moved on, but for some reason we are being forced to use English grammar as if we were early 20th century upper-class schoolboys.
Yes, I know about the lack of consistency - though interesting that this continued past the publication of Johnson's dictionary, which of course standardised spelling. My point was more that it shows the logical inclination to use an apostrophe, which wouldn't happen with possessives that have taken on a completely new form, such as 'my' and 'her'. No apostrophes in their history.
I bet greengrocers' apostraphes have been used for a very long time.
Indeed, I suspect the rules were deliberately introduced to separate the "properly educated" from the oily riff-raff.
Yes, I find apostrophes used to be used more liberally, simply to indicate that a word had been modified by an 's' for plural, or also a 'd' or 't' for past tense. It's really just a way to depict the spoken word on paper.
Even more recently, apostrophes have often been used to add a plural or past tense to a word which doesn't follow the normal conventions of words, to show that the grammatical addition is a bit artificial, and doesn't have a set form - like to acronyms or letters or foreign words that haven't yet been anglicisised.
This was the norm when I was younger, but seems way more frowned on now - maybe American influence, as I first heard disapproval of it from Americans, and the American approach to grammar is to make a rule totally consistent, whereas the British approach lets you adapt to context, for clarity. So Americans might say 'No apostrophes ever for plurals,' whereas Brits might say 'In general, apostrophes are not used in plurals, but when pluralising something that doesn't lend itself to a natural plural, an apostrophe adds clarity.' But now we might have taken the American approach, as Americans are the majority online, so have more influence.
Also apostrophes seem to be missing from Welsh. Other than a few accents, it's remarkably lacking in stupid punctuation.
I imagine when a word is pluralised in Welsh, it must be different from when it is indicating possession? It is kind of daft that English uses an 's' for both.
Also apostrophes seem to be missing from Welsh. Other than a few accents, it's remarkably lacking in stupid punctuation.
I imagine when a word is pluralised in Welsh, it must be different from when it is indicating possession? It is kind of daft that English uses an 's' for both.
Erm. Ok, I'm a learner so no expert on Welsh.
But the word order is completely different to English. So I don't think one tends to mix up plurals and possessives.
OK, because I was taught the possessive s wasn't required for names ending in s - like Jesus, because Jesus', James', Agnes' or Mr Bliss' is far less clumsy than Jesus's, James's, Agnes's or Mr Bliss's. The logical follow on from using Jesu's would be that we'd use Jame's, Agne's and Mr Blis's too, none of which I've seen. And would go against the grammar advice that's around.
I learnt Jesus' as a kid too. Lynn Truss's book (and I deliberately write Truss's rather than Truss' for reasons that will become clear), Eats, Shoots and Leaves, talks about this sort of thing. She says when a name ends with an s, as if it is a plural, such as Mrs Williams, Miss Jones, or Mr Peters, then put an apostrophe at the end for possession, without adding an extra 's'. But not for names where the 's' is simply part of the word, like her own name Truss, and names like Harris and Ross. But then she adds that Jesus is an exception, because the convention has always been to write Jesus'.
Also, I find some people pronounce the possessive Jesus' as Jeez-yooz, rather than the usual Jee-zuss. Which, now I think about it, might create a bit of confusion regarding apostrophe placement.
It is kind of daft that English uses an 's' for both.
It is, as I recall, the result of simplification of a Germanic language, coupled with some Norman French influence.
Short version, if I'm remembering right: Old English used various inflections to indicate plurals, some of which still survive, e.g. "children," "oxen" or "feet." Being a Germanic language, the specific form of the plural depended on whether the noun strong or weak, or was masculine, feminine or neuter, as well as case (nominative, accusative, genitive or dative). And as in other Germanic languages, including modern German, the same endings were used for different inflections based on noun type, gender and number. That got complicated.
Probably due to Norman French influence, not only did most of these inflections die out, but one particular set—using s or es to form the plural—gradually came to be used for most plurals, though that took a long time to happen. And as I noted, old forms survived for some words.
Meanwhile, for possessives, there were a number of genitive endings: -es, -a, -an, -ena and a few other. For strong nouns, it was -es (masculine or neuter singular) or -a (feminine, or masculine or neuter plural). Again possibly under Norman French influence and desire to simplify, -es began to predominate. Eventually, the e in -es ceased to be pronounced with any emphasis. I think it was typesetters who began the now universal practice of replacing the e with an apostrophe, so that Chaucer's freendes became the possessive friend's. Of course, in a different sentence context, Chaucer's freendes became the plural friends. But as with so many things in a language context is used to determine which is meant.
I probably got that all screwed up, but it's a start.
Thanks, Nick. So many conflicting influences from different languages makes English rather illogical and inconsistent! But interesting to tease apart.
I was just thinking about how French avoids this confusion by not having a possessive form of nouns - just using 'of' (de). 'The book of the man', rather than 'the man's book'. Le livre de l'homme rather than L'homme's livre - that just wouldn't work, because both man and book need a determiner. French doesn't let you combine the two and let them share a 'the' - that is kind of sloppy, now I think of it, and wouldn't work in French because the 'the's have to agree with the nouns they modify. And also the possessive determiners for the pronouns need to agree - to indicate gender, and singular or plural, of what is being possessed. In English, 'my' remains the same if I refer to my book, or to my books. But in French, mon livre, but mes livres.
Comments
Citation needed.
OMG! Mark Betts is actually Trump!
More likely a reactive adult with selective impulse control usage.
More evidence that's he's actually Trump?
So glad you reminded us of how one person's being unable to let go of something trivial could bring out the worst in many of us. Fab∙u∙lous.
Normally we'd use the "'s" it to imply possession: Jim's guitar is the guitar belonging to Jim.
So it does make logical sense to imagine that "it's" means that the thing belongs to it.
Also I note that my phone auto corrects its.
So an easy and understandable mistake to make.
I noticed you were trying to derail the new Ukraine Orthodox thread Mr Cheesy. I don't like swearing on these boards, but in your case it's appropriate - Fuck Off!
It is. It's of course because apostrophes are only used to create the possessive forn of nouns, not pronouns.
Well if someone explains that "its" is just like "his" then it is easier to understand. But, y'know, it is a thing you either know or you don't, and easy to overlook.
I know Mark Betts brought this on himself, but we can surely agree it is tedious. No?
I'm naturally given to two sins, well, one, because they're both actually Pride - grammar Nazism and feeling superior to people who can't spell, punctuate, who use "of" for "have" etc. This is a Bad Thing; one of the Seven Deadly things. And of course the moment you make a slip yourself you fit yourself for the Hypocrites' Circle.
So yeah, we should.
I agree that adding an apostrophe to the possessive 'its' is far more logical. I picked up grammar rules pretty quickly as a kid, from observation, and this was the one that took me longest to realise. We once had a very pedantic history teacher at school who made a huge deal of telling us all as a class how stupid it is to put an apostrophe in 'its,' when there is a very logical reason why we shouldn't, and then asked if any of us was clever enough to know the reason for it. We all stared blankly at him, and eventually I put up my hand and gave the reason I used in my own thinking (which I knew wasn't a good reason!): 'Because the "it is" contraction has already taken it.' Not the right answer! His answer, which he was so clearly proud of announcing, was 'Because it's a pronoun!' And I was thinking 'Yeah, but that would only make proper sense if we had Is for my, and yous for your, and shes for her and wes for our and theys for their. And ones for one's. How come one gets an apostrophe, huh?'
Interesting. Never come across that debate, but I guess removing the apostrophe might be a popular idea among those who like to try to make language more logical. Is it debated in the UK, or more a US thing? I think 'it' is a bit of an odd one out among the conventional list of pronouns, as they primarily apply to people. It is the only one which simply uses its pronoun form with an 's' added to form a possessive determiner. So it's easy to pull it apart into a full word with an 's' added, same as the apostrophe possessives, which you can't do with the other pronouns that have had their entire form changed.
There was very little consistency in English spelling during that period.
Which is what (for me) is so daft about being picky over spelling and grammar; these rules only emerged to deliberately simplify the language.
The language has moved on, but for some reason we are being forced to use English grammar as if we were early 20th century upper-class schoolboys.
Yeah, what this forum needs is a team of sub-editors.
Now there is a distinction between possessive determiners - my, your, his, her, etc. - which I guess are a form of adjective, as they modify a noun, and possessive pronouns, which exist in their own right - mine, yours, his (his is the same in both forms), hers, etc. It occurs to me that 'it' doesn't have this kind of possessive pronoun. You can say 'The cake belongs to her - it's hers,' but you can't (or at least don't) say 'The cake belongs to it - it's its.'
More commonly we are simply using contractions - "it's time for tea" or pronoun "my dog has had its tea".
I can't really think that we would often try to say "my dog has had its tea - it's now in its stomach."
Maybe that's the only way to make it sound sensible - by adding extra descriptive words to the second part of the phrase.
Or maybe just break it up into smaller sentences.
Yes, I know about the lack of consistency - though interesting that this continued past the publication of Johnson's dictionary, which of course standardised spelling. My point was more that it shows the logical inclination to use an apostrophe, which wouldn't happen with possessives that have taken on a completely new form, such as 'my' and 'her'. No apostrophes in their history.
I bet greengrocers' apostraphes have been used for a very long time.
Indeed, I suspect the rules were deliberately introduced to separate the "properly educated" from the oily riff-raff.
Do you speak Welsh? I can sing the first verse of the Welsh national anthem accurately, but I don't know anything about its grammar system. I tend to think Italian would be a good universal language. Its phonology is so consistent in its spelling. Much less diagnosis of dyslexia in Italy, apparently - not that it doesn't exist in the same prevalence as in the UK, but it simply causes much less of a barrier. According to some research by Uta Frith, at least, but it makes sense logically to me.
🤣🤣
I forgive you 😜
I'm studying it. I think Karl is too.
Him/his etc are the same word - but then there are many different kinds of Welsh, so they seem to get over the "Grammar Nazi" problem by just accepting that different people speak it differently with different levels of formality.
Yes, I find apostrophes used to be used more liberally, simply to indicate that a word had been modified by an 's' for plural, or also a 'd' or 't' for past tense. It's really just a way to depict the spoken word on paper.
Even more recently, apostrophes have often been used to add a plural or past tense to a word which doesn't follow the normal conventions of words, to show that the grammatical addition is a bit artificial, and doesn't have a set form - like to acronyms or letters or foreign words that haven't yet been anglicisised.
This was the norm when I was younger, but seems way more frowned on now - maybe American influence, as I first heard disapproval of it from Americans, and the American approach to grammar is to make a rule totally consistent, whereas the British approach lets you adapt to context, for clarity. So Americans might say 'No apostrophes ever for plurals,' whereas Brits might say 'In general, apostrophes are not used in plurals, but when pluralising something that doesn't lend itself to a natural plural, an apostrophe adds clarity.' But now we might have taken the American approach, as Americans are the majority online, so have more influence.
I imagine when a word is pluralised in Welsh, it must be different from when it is indicating possession? It is kind of daft that English uses an 's' for both.
Erm. Ok, I'm a learner so no expert on Welsh.
But the word order is completely different to English. So I don't think one tends to mix up plurals and possessives.
No I mean that I was taught "the disciples of Jesus" was written "Jesu's disciples" and not "Jesus's disciples".
But I doubt it really matters.
edit: I'm fairly sure Jesus' (or James' etc) would be better. But I wasn't taught that.
Short version, if I'm remembering right: Old English used various inflections to indicate plurals, some of which still survive, e.g. "children," "oxen" or "feet." Being a Germanic language, the specific form of the plural depended on whether the noun strong or weak, or was masculine, feminine or neuter, as well as case (nominative, accusative, genitive or dative). And as in other Germanic languages, including modern German, the same endings were used for different inflections based on noun type, gender and number. That got complicated.
Probably due to Norman French influence, not only did most of these inflections die out, but one particular set—using s or es to form the plural—gradually came to be used for most plurals, though that took a long time to happen. And as I noted, old forms survived for some words.
Meanwhile, for possessives, there were a number of genitive endings: -es, -a, -an, -ena and a few other. For strong nouns, it was -es (masculine or neuter singular) or -a (feminine, or masculine or neuter plural). Again possibly under Norman French influence and desire to simplify, -es began to predominate. Eventually, the e in -es ceased to be pronounced with any emphasis. I think it was typesetters who began the now universal practice of replacing the e with an apostrophe, so that Chaucer's freendes became the possessive friend's. Of course, in a different sentence context, Chaucer's freendes became the plural friends. But as with so many things in a language context is used to determine which is meant.
I probably got that all screwed up, but it's a start.
I was just thinking about how French avoids this confusion by not having a possessive form of nouns - just using 'of' (de). 'The book of the man', rather than 'the man's book'. Le livre de l'homme rather than L'homme's livre - that just wouldn't work, because both man and book need a determiner. French doesn't let you combine the two and let them share a 'the' - that is kind of sloppy, now I think of it, and wouldn't work in French because the 'the's have to agree with the nouns they modify. And also the possessive determiners for the pronouns need to agree - to indicate gender, and singular or plural, of what is being possessed. In English, 'my' remains the same if I refer to my book, or to my books. But in French, mon livre, but mes livres.