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

standard.co.uk

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

#101

Post by sterlind »

Shorel wrote: post #95
shpx wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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"?

Ч Афтер зис фифз йер, ве вил хав а рели сенсибл ритен стил. Зер вил бе но мор трублс ор дификултис анд евривун вил финд ид ези ту ундерстанд еч озер. Зе дрем вил финали кум тру. It was fun typing that :)

Юр екзампль хурт мой брен, анд мой спел-чэк.

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

#103

Post by mercer »

kmm wrote: post #77
mikorym wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You comment does not give any argument behind it. If both "it's" and "its" are merged, what, do you also propose merging "weather", "whether"? Weather that is nice, is nice weather.

The words weather and whether are only rarely mixed up naturally, in contrast to apostrophes. And even if they were, why not? The pronunciations have already merged, the only reason they're still distinct is because of the immense historical legacy English is carrying around. In Dutch, a sister of English, they're both written "weer".

I don't think that's correct. Plus, "Weer" actually has at least three meanings: "weather", "again", and "keep out"/"avert".

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

#104

Post by jobigoud »

neonate wrote: post #98
shpx wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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"?

Why not just "ch"?

They just removed 'c' from typewriters.

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

#105

Post by jobigoud »

guenthert wrote: post #69
guiraldelli wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Anecdotally I found there is a high correlation between one’s ability to write correct English and one’s ability to write correct code. I have been thinking a long time about it and I concluded it is about one being methodical. A methodic person tends to put extra attention on (all) the tasks they perform, as well as they are more critic to correctness, and those features combined might make them “better programmer…

Absurd oversimplification. What are "better programmers"? There clearly will be a difference in requirements whether you'll be programming assembly code for a space probe or javascript for yet another web site. Beside, one would think that proper English (which?) grammar and orthography comes easier to native speakers. The same isn't true for Math and logically stringent thinking, which I'd think is more closely rela…

Programmers whose code can be more easily read and maintained later would be at least one metric.

Regarding the use of the apostrophe, I don't have any proof but I think it's more often native speakers rather than non-native speakers that make theses mistakes. Especially it's vs its. I would be really curious to have stats on this and more generally on the categories of errors that non-native speakers make compared to native speakers.

I think it's because a non-native speaker has to learn the grammar in a systematic way, as opposed to a more organic/phonetic way. For example we (non-native) learn "it is" before learning "it's", which I imagine is the opposite of a native speaker.

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

#106

Post by jaclaz »

jackjeff wrote: post #35
lacker wrote: 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.

Anecdotally as well, this extends to other fields besides programming/writing code, though personally I define it as the contrary, i.e. someone that writes "sloppily" (without proper grammar, with typos, etc.) will also work "sloppily", no matter the specific work, paricularly when some "team effort" is needed.

I suspect that at the base there is somehow a lack in communication skills and "education", or more generally a lack of respect for otherwise agreed conventions (grammar and spelling when writing) that is corresponding to a same lack of respect for other people or for the specific conventions/rules that apply to the specific work.

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

#107

Post by Bendingo »

Shorel wrote: post #95
shpx wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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"?

Ч Афтер зис фифз йер, ве вил хав а рели сенсибл ритен стил. Зер вил бе но мор трублс ор дификултис анд евривун вил финд ид ези ту ундерстанд еч озер. Зе дрем вил финали кум тру. It was fun typing that :)

It was fun to read also :) молодец. й миин, вал данн

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

#109

Post by solarkraft »

Taniwha wrote: post #30
ImaCake wrote: post #29

My instinct is to mock the ridiculousness of campaigning for correct use of apostrophes. Since english is pretty lawless these days and often gets dragged in new and wonderful directions. It seems stupid to rail against the tide of mutable grammar and syntax. But what about the development of High German and standard Italian? Both are examples where, with sufficient resources and nationalism, you can coalesce a dispa…

The think is we dont need them in spoken English, we understand what people mean. Theres no reason why we need them when we write

There absolutely is. Your misspelling of thing completely distracted me while reading, checking whether you were making some more complex joke, actually meant think, etc.
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