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Why does it need to die? What is the rationale behind that?

by WhompingWindows 7y ago

cwilkes 7y ago
What’s the rationale for keeping it? English should try to be at least a little bit easier parse for a newbie.
- darkpuma 7y ago
  One man trying to dictate the direction of a language used by a billion people... that's just not going to happen. Not that I don't sympathize. I think that "it's" should be the possessive form of 'it', not a contraction of 'it is'. Maybe if we band together we can force-feed both our changes at once to the rest of the world?
  - BoorishBoor 7y ago
    I'm sure you also write "hi's" and "her's" because, if not, you are advocating for making English more irregular and not less.
  - cameronbrown 7y ago
    Languages by definition are fluid. If a certain way of spelling a word or grammatical structure spreads to become popular (possibly, yes, from one person), then it becomes the new normal.
    - darkpuma 7y ago
      English is fluid like the tides are fluid. The chance that somebody can dictate the direction of that tide is very slim.
buckminster 7y ago
Because it reflects a misunderstanding. People say "Boris's bike" not "Boris' bike". They typically omit the possessive s when they mistake the existing s for a possessive. Like in Bayes.
BlackFly 7y ago
If you read the article, you will find out that you are only supposed to use the exception on historical names. Most people use it incorrectly and drop the trailing s any time the word ends in an s. Arguably for Bayes, he is historical enough that it could be appropriate, but that makes the rule even worse: at what point in time does a personality become historical enough that you must drop the s? I personally consider "historical" to mean: about the time of Archimedes, when a lot of people's names seemed to end in s. In my opinion it is just better to keep the s as that matches how people will pronounce it and regularization of the language is better. Plus the misuse of the rule makes it even worse.

Why does it need to die? What is the rationale behind that?

cwilkes 7y ago

What’s the rationale for keeping it? English should try to be at least a little bit easier parse for a newbie.

darkpuma 7y ago
One man trying to dictate the direction of a language used by a billion people... that's just not going to happen. Not that I don't sympathize. I think that "it's" should be the possessive form of 'it', not a contraction of 'it is'. Maybe if we band together we can force-feed both our changes at once to the rest of the world?
- BoorishBoor 7y ago
  I'm sure you also write "hi's" and "her's" because, if not, you are advocating for making English more irregular and not less.
- cameronbrown 7y ago
  Languages by definition are fluid. If a certain way of spelling a word or grammatical structure spreads to become popular (possibly, yes, from one person), then it becomes the new normal.
  - darkpuma 7y ago
    English is fluid like the tides are fluid. The chance that somebody can dictate the direction of that tide is very slim.

buckminster 7y ago

Because it reflects a misunderstanding. People say "Boris's bike" not "Boris' bike". They typically omit the possessive s when they mistake the existing s for a possessive. Like in Bayes.

BlackFly 7y ago

If you read the article, you will find out that you are only supposed to use the exception on historical names. Most people use it incorrectly and drop the trailing s any time the word ends in an s. Arguably for Bayes, he is historical enough that it could be appropriate, but that makes the rule even worse: at what point in time does a personality become historical enough that you must drop the s? I personally consider "historical" to mean: about the time of Archimedes, when a lot of people's names seemed to end in s. In my opinion it is just better to keep the s as that matches how people will pronounce it and regularization of the language is better. Plus the misuse of the rule makes it even worse.