9 ms·

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 sl

by lacker 7y ago

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.

larnmar 7y ago
Language communicates many things. Correct usage of apostrophes or who/whom is like metadata in your writing that communicates “I am at least educated enough to have been in fourth grade, and at least intelligent enough to have retained some pretty basic rules since then, and at least careful enough to give a damn”. It’s a weak signal, but it’s a signal nonetheless, and people aren’t going to give it up.
- exergy 7y ago
  Moreover, I think of it like how I think of clothes. You dress well not just for yourself but also as a mark of respect to those whom you're about to meet. Properly typed posts convey similar respect. Also, sorry to invoke the slippery slope argument, but otherwise what's stopping us from devolving all the way back to scriptura continua?
  - thaumasiotes 7y ago
    > otherwise what's stopping us from devolving all the way back to scriptura continua? The facts that 1. People once trained generally do not have a problem identifying word boundaries. There are edge cases, but for whatever reason they don't tend to cause problems. 2. People overwhelmingly agree that marking of word boundaries in text is useful. Neither of those is true for apostrophes. They're hard for people to remember even after being trained, and they add no value.
    - Brian_K_White 7y ago
      They are not hard to remember, and they add value. Gee it's almost like stating an opinion as though it were a fact is free, and anyone can do it, and it means nothing, and so is a pointless waste of time, which says something about the worth of the insights of whoever does it.
      - thaumasiotes 7y ago
        You can clearly see that they are hard to remember by the frequency with which people make errors. That two opinions are stated with the same rhetorical backing doesn't give them the same empirical backing.
neonate 7y ago
Your comment reminds me of this classic: http://ashvital.freeservers.com/ze_dream.htm http://ashvital.freeservers.com/ze_dream.htm
- shpx 7y ago
  > 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"?
  - im3w1l 7y ago
    tsh
    - oeuviz 7y ago
      Č, obviously. The keyboard's (1) letter c will be repurposed. (1) I really hope this is a correct usage of the apostrophe.
      - claire1157 7y ago
        It is.
  - ginko 7y ago
    tsch or dsch
    - deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - Shorel 7y ago
    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 :)
NeedMoreTea 7y ago
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.
- lordnacho 7y ago
  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.
vixen99 7y ago
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.
- Izkata 7y ago
  > 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".
- kmm 7y ago
  It wouldn't take any more parsing because we'd be used to it. Dutch doesn't have the apostrophe for the possessive (except where a word ends in a vowel, where the rule is opposite to English! At least I have a good excuse for not keeping them straight). Languages are both in writing and in speech inherently immensely ambiguous, something as trivial as whether or not the possessive has an apostrophe will never make the difference. Speakers and writers subconsciously work around it.
- yesenadam 7y ago
  > With some expressions, those who don't, against the grain, force their readers to double check the parsing. Speaking of clarity vs confusion, and forcing readers to double check parsing! Muphry strikes again. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muphry%27s_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muphry%27s_law
jackjeff 7y ago
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.
- WilliamEdward 7y ago
  Glad to know the difference between me having money to survive and being jobless will be a typo.
  - Dylan16807 7y ago
    Only if you were right on the border line to begin with.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - commandlinefan 7y ago
    Put a different way - isn't it nice to know that the only thing you have to do to avoid being jobless is to spend five minutes proofreading your submissions?
  - nkrisc 7y ago
    What, your keystrokes were streamed to the hiring manager as you typed? Writing is not real-time communication, take the time to review it before you send it. I corrected a few typos while writing this comment.
    - WilliamEdward 7y ago
      Mistakes can happen even after proofreading.
      - 7y ago
mantap 7y ago
ThesamegoesforspacesbutIdon'tthink anybodywouldarguethatwe shouldstopusingthem.
mikorym 7y ago
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.
- kmm 7y ago
  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".
  - mercer 7y ago
    I don't think that's correct. Plus, "Weer" actually has at least three meanings: "weather", "again", and "keep out"/"avert".
72deluxe 7y ago
Indeed it is simpler but it changes the meaning of a sentence quite significantly. Correct syntax is important - should I be able to write my C++ without semicolons too? Next you'll be arguing that we should use "brought" and "bought" interchangeably because they sound similar enough (and it seems everyone I hear thinks they're the same anyway even though they have wildly different meanings).
Udik 7y ago
I heard you're idea's and their definatly good.

by lacker 7y ago

larnmar 7y ago

Language communicates many things. Correct usage of apostrophes or who/whom is like metadata in your writing that communicates “I am at least educated enough to have been in fourth grade, and at least intelligent enough to have retained some pretty basic rules since then, and at least careful enough to give a damn”. It’s a weak signal, but it’s a signal nonetheless, and people aren’t going to give it up.

exergy 7y ago
Moreover, I think of it like how I think of clothes. You dress well not just for yourself but also as a mark of respect to those whom you're about to meet. Properly typed posts convey similar respect. Also, sorry to invoke the slippery slope argument, but otherwise what's stopping us from devolving all the way back to scriptura continua?
- thaumasiotes 7y ago
  > otherwise what's stopping us from devolving all the way back to scriptura continua? The facts that 1. People once trained generally do not have a problem identifying word boundaries. There are edge cases, but for whatever reason they don't tend to cause problems. 2. People overwhelmingly agree that marking of word boundaries in text is useful. Neither of those is true for apostrophes. They're hard for people to remember even after being trained, and they add no value.
  - Brian_K_White 7y ago
    They are not hard to remember, and they add value. Gee it's almost like stating an opinion as though it were a fact is free, and anyone can do it, and it means nothing, and so is a pointless waste of time, which says something about the worth of the insights of whoever does it.
    - thaumasiotes 7y ago
      You can clearly see that they are hard to remember by the frequency with which people make errors. That two opinions are stated with the same rhetorical backing doesn't give them the same empirical backing.

neonate 7y ago

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

shpx 7y ago
> 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"?
- im3w1l 7y ago
  tsh
  - oeuviz 7y ago
    Č, obviously. The keyboard's (1) letter c will be repurposed. (1) I really hope this is a correct usage of the apostrophe.
    - claire1157 7y ago
      It is.
- ginko 7y ago
  tsch or dsch
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- Shorel 7y ago
  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 :)

NeedMoreTea 7y ago

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.

lordnacho 7y ago
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.

vixen99 7y ago

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.

Izkata 7y ago
> 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".
kmm 7y ago
It wouldn't take any more parsing because we'd be used to it. Dutch doesn't have the apostrophe for the possessive (except where a word ends in a vowel, where the rule is opposite to English! At least I have a good excuse for not keeping them straight). Languages are both in writing and in speech inherently immensely ambiguous, something as trivial as whether or not the possessive has an apostrophe will never make the difference. Speakers and writers subconsciously work around it.
yesenadam 7y ago
> With some expressions, those who don't, against the grain, force their readers to double check the parsing. Speaking of clarity vs confusion, and forcing readers to double check parsing! Muphry strikes again. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muphry%27s_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muphry%27s_law

jackjeff 7y ago

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.

WilliamEdward 7y ago
Glad to know the difference between me having money to survive and being jobless will be a typo.
- Dylan16807 7y ago
  Only if you were right on the border line to begin with.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- commandlinefan 7y ago
  Put a different way - isn't it nice to know that the only thing you have to do to avoid being jobless is to spend five minutes proofreading your submissions?
- nkrisc 7y ago
  What, your keystrokes were streamed to the hiring manager as you typed? Writing is not real-time communication, take the time to review it before you send it. I corrected a few typos while writing this comment.
  - WilliamEdward 7y ago
    Mistakes can happen even after proofreading.
    - 7y ago

mantap 7y ago

ThesamegoesforspacesbutIdon'tthink anybodywouldarguethatwe shouldstopusingthem.

mikorym 7y ago

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.

kmm 7y ago
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".
- mercer 7y ago
  I don't think that's correct. Plus, "Weer" actually has at least three meanings: "weather", "again", and "keep out"/"avert".

72deluxe 7y ago

Indeed it is simpler but it changes the meaning of a sentence quite significantly. Correct syntax is important - should I be able to write my C++ without semicolons too? Next you'll be arguing that we should use "brought" and "bought" interchangeably because they sound similar enough (and it seems everyone I hear thinks they're the same anyway even though they have wildly different meanings).

Udik 7y ago

I heard you're idea's and their definatly good.