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Apostrophe society shuts down because 'ignorance and laziness have won'

standard.co.uk

31–40 of 109 posts

Re: Apostrophe society shuts down because 'ignorance and laziness have won'

#31
post #8

Its just simpler to not worry about the apostrophes. Theyre unnecessary for understanding what a sentence is saying. Im confident that future English will be slightly superior once it has eliminated the apostrophe.

The difference between plural and possessive can matter greatly, e.g. decade's (belonging to the particular decade discussed) and decades (more than one decade), etc.

Re: Apostrophe society shuts down because 'ignorance and laziness have won'

#32
post #8

Its just simpler to not worry about the apostrophes. Theyre unnecessary for understanding what a sentence is saying. Im confident that future English will be slightly superior once it has eliminated the apostrophe.

Clarity or confusion? George Bernard Shaw back in 1900 promoted the same idea and his writing was full of its (the abbreviation) and Ives and cant. It still hasn't happened for good reason and most people follow the rules.

With some expressions, those who don't, against the grain, force their readers to double check the parsing. The cost may be only a millisecond or two but it is nevertheless a tiny distraction incurred because someone can't be bothered to follow a simple rule taught in primary school. In the glorious future envisaged in the comment, everyone will ignore the apostrophe so all of us will have to do a bit of extra scanning. What's superior about that?

Is it really that difficult to remember that the apostrophe in it's (for instance), is always without exception used as an abbreviation for 'it is' or 'it has', not an indication of possession and thus your's is wrong.

Re: Apostrophe society shuts down because 'ignorance and laziness have won'

#34
post #32
post #8

Its just simpler to not worry about the apostrophes. Theyre unnecessary for understanding what a sentence is saying. Im confident that future English will be slightly superior once it has eliminated the apostrophe.

Clarity or confusion? George Bernard Shaw back in 1900 promoted the same idea and his writing was full of its (the abbreviation) and Ives and cant. It still hasn't happened for good reason and most people follow the rules. With some expressions, those who don't, against the grain, force their readers to double check the parsing. The cost may be only a millisecond or two but it is nevertheless a tiny distraction incur…

> Is it really that difficult to remember that the apostrophe in it's (for instance), is always without exception used as an abbreviation for 'it is' or 'it has', not an indication of possession and thus your's is wrong.

From someone who had issues with this for years, just parroting the rule as you did doesn't help, it only made sense after learning the reason why: the possessive form "its" is grouped with "his" and "hers", not "vixen99's" and "Izkata's".

Re: Apostrophe society shuts down because 'ignorance and laziness have won'

#35
post #8

Its just simpler to not worry about the apostrophes. Theyre unnecessary for understanding what a sentence is saying. Im confident that future English will be slightly superior once it has eliminated the apostrophe.

Anecdotally I found there is a high correlation between one’s ability to write correct English and one’s ability to write correct code. If I’m in the hiring side and I see a “its” vs “it’s” mistake it counts against you.

A higher correlation is with consistency in spacing. The worst coders I met are the one who keep changing the rules about how many spaces they leave after commas and brackets... within the same file.

Re: Apostrophe society shuts down because 'ignorance and laziness have won'

#37
post #14
post #8

Its just simpler to not worry about the apostrophes. Theyre unnecessary for understanding what a sentence is saying. Im confident that future English will be slightly superior once it has eliminated the apostrophe.

Your comment reminds me of this classic: http://ashvital.freeservers.com/ze_dream.htm

> In the first year, "s" will be used instead of the soft "c".

> Sertainly, sivil servants will resieve this news with joy. Also, the hard "c" will be replaced with "k". Not only will this klear up konfusion, but typewriters kan have one less letter.

How would you type "ch"?

Re: Apostrophe society shuts down because 'ignorance and laziness have won'

#38
post #8

Its just simpler to not worry about the apostrophes. Theyre unnecessary for understanding what a sentence is saying. Im confident that future English will be slightly superior once it has eliminated the apostrophe.

Anecdotally I found there is a high correlation between one’s ability to write correct English and one’s ability to write correct code. If I’m in the hiring side and I see a “its” vs “it’s” mistake it counts against you. A higher correlation is with consistency in spacing. The worst coders I met are the one who keep changing the rules about how many spaces they leave after commas and brackets... within the same file.

Glad to know the difference between me having money to survive and being jobless will be a typo.

Re: Apostrophe society shuts down because 'ignorance and laziness have won'

#39
post #8

Its just simpler to not worry about the apostrophes. Theyre unnecessary for understanding what a sentence is saying. Im confident that future English will be slightly superior once it has eliminated the apostrophe.

ThesamegoesforspacesbutIdon'tthink anybodywouldarguethatwe shouldstopusingthem.

Re: Apostrophe society shuts down because 'ignorance and laziness have won'

#40
post #8

Its just simpler to not worry about the apostrophes. Theyre unnecessary for understanding what a sentence is saying. Im confident that future English will be slightly superior once it has eliminated the apostrophe.

The difference between plural and possessive can matter greatly, e.g. decade's (belonging to the particular decade discussed) and decades (more than one decade), etc.

It can, but it's not like having some special rule fixes all confusion. Mostly confusion is solved by having some larger context, not by nitpicky rules.

You could do like in German and force everyone to capitalise nouns. I'm sure there are German grammar pedants who have some reason why that's a good idea, too.

Or clarify that a sentence is a question by making everyone do the upside down "?" sign to wrap the question inside of, like Spanish.

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