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> It’s original purpose was to Side note: as a non-native speaker I’m always shocked by these basic errors made by natives, even more when they’re so prominent

by hk__2 6y ago

> It’s original purpose was to Side note: as a non-native speaker I’m always shocked by these basic errors made by natives, even more when they’re so prominent: here it’s the very first word of the lead. Edit: as pointed in the comment the author is not a native. This was a general remark.

smitty1e 6y ago
The extraneous apostrophe is such a common error as to border on acceptable usage. The only people using datum in the singular and data in the plural are academics and Latin aficionados. The fact that the real cost driver was industrial is interesting. But improvement of the human condition has been ever about the follow-on uses of some new gadget, from fire for heat to whoever decided to cook food using the heat from fire.
- chillacy 6y ago
  There are so many non-native speakers of english (owing to it being the current international language) I don't even bother correcting grammar anymore in code comments in pull requests anymore. Unless it's like, user facing or something. But anyways, all the better I suppose to focus on content.
  - vbezhenar 6y ago
    Grammar will be fine when browsers and other tools will implement good grammar checking. I don't understand why browser developers don't focus on it. There are some companies like Grammarly solving that issue, but that should be standard feature rather than paid opt-in. I can translate website in Chrome with a single click, but I can't check grammar. And translation is a really hard task, while grammar is pretty much formalized and could be coded without any AI breakthroughs. I'm not native speaker and my text likely contains a lot of errors. For example I fix spell errors, because browser underlines them instantly, I'd fix grammar errors and may be I would develop some kind of grammar literacy after some time with proper computer assistance.
- gruez 6y ago
  > The extraneous apostrophe is such a common error as to border on acceptable usage. And that's sad, especially since it leads to more ambiguity in sentences.
  - washadjeffmad 6y ago
    I couldn't think of an example that would trip up a native speaker. What was an example you had in mind?
    - hnick 6y ago
      I can think of a few two word statements ("It's tender") but they are meaningless outside of context anyway.
chillacy 6y ago
How do you know the author is a native speaker?
akuma73 6y ago
What always confused me was that "its" is meant to denote possession. For example, I find this to be more consistent. Bob's purpose vs. It's purpose For consistency, shouldn't we use: Bobs purpose
- glial 6y ago
  I can only remember the rule by remembering that “its”, “his”, and “hers” are pronouns and none have apostrophes.
- brigandish 6y ago
  What if their name is "Bobs"? You'd have no way to distinguish the name as names are always going to be the least consistent part of the language - would you then use "Bobss"? But what if their name is "Bobss"…? ;-) Funnily enough, if their name was Bobs then the possessive would be Bobs', but you'll see natives use Bobs's and even say "Bobses" (Gollum like) as it's confusing even for us. That kind of consistency isn't a strength of the language, and the education system is failing too many people (that's a whole other discussion).
  - dragonwriter 6y ago
    > Funnily enough, if their name was Bobs then the possessive would be Bobs’ Actually, no; s’ is for possessives of plural nouns ending in s (well, an s or z sound, which might be an s, x, or z, but usually for a plural will be an s, and most plurals ending with s won't have it silent, but...); plural nouns not ending in s or singular nouns, including those ending in s, get ’s. Except for the special rules for classical and Biblical names, where then the number of syllables in the base name (which then makes the s or z sound rule more interesting, because names ending with silent s, x, or z are a thing) becomes relevant because English. https://www.merriam-webster.com/words-at-play/what-happens-to-names-when-we-make-them-plural-or-possessive https://www.merriam-webster.com/words-at-play/what-happens-t... > as it's confusing even for us. True, that.
    - brigandish 6y ago
      There's an article on the front page about Perl 7, I'm starting to wonder which one has the more difficult grammar ;-)
dsdklfjskldj 6y ago
The author is not a native speaker. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vaclav_Smil https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vaclav_Smil As a native speaker, it bothers me quite a bit.
hombre_fatal 6y ago
This is almost always a mistake in muscle memory error than the author literally not understanding "its" vs "it's". It's a typo. The author goes on to use "its" correctly the rest of the post. As a grammar nazi myself, being a typo nazi annoys me. It's as useful to the discussion as getting on your case for using the U+2019 quotation mark instead of an apostrophe in your contraction of "they’re" and "it’s" in your comment.
- not2b 6y ago
  I think that the mistake is common because it is triggered by a language irregularity. Normally in English, 's indicates a possessive. By that logic, something that belongs to "it" should be "it's", just as something that belongs to John is "John's". But no, we spell the possessive pronoun "its". And I've often seen autocorrect try to turn a correct "its" into an incorrect "it's" or vice versa.
  - hombre_fatal 6y ago
    Sure, I can see why people mess it up. But unless you see someone consistently mess it up (thus, confusion about how it works), it's just a typo and not worth derailing conversation. At least grammar nazis can tell themselves that they're spreading wisdom.
  - acheron 6y ago
    There isn’t anything irregular about it, pronouns are just different from nouns. His, hers, yours, ours, theirs, its.
  - jedberg 6y ago
    For some reason my computer will underline both it’s and its with a red line, regardless of context. On the plus side, it gets me to double check that I did it right. But it’s still really annoying!
  - eatingCake 6y ago
    > Normally in English, 's indicates a possessive. It seems that the opposite is true. ' indicates a contraction first, and possibly a possessive iff no such contraction exists.
sampo 6y ago
> as a non-native speaker I’m always shocked by these basic errors made by natives After some years of living in an English speaking country, I started to make these native errors myself. Maybe they are not native, after all.
bluGill 6y ago
As a native I'm always annoyed by the stupidity of English spelling and grammar. Two words pronounced the same, but spelled different. In spoken conversation we have no problem figuring out what is meant, but somehow we think readers are not smart enough to figure it out? English spelling is badly in need of reform.

by hk__2 6y ago

smitty1e 6y ago

The extraneous apostrophe is such a common error as to border on acceptable usage. The only people using datum in the singular and data in the plural are academics and Latin aficionados. The fact that the real cost driver was industrial is interesting. But improvement of the human condition has been ever about the follow-on uses of some new gadget, from fire for heat to whoever decided to cook food using the heat from fire.

chillacy 6y ago
There are so many non-native speakers of english (owing to it being the current international language) I don't even bother correcting grammar anymore in code comments in pull requests anymore. Unless it's like, user facing or something. But anyways, all the better I suppose to focus on content.
- vbezhenar 6y ago
  Grammar will be fine when browsers and other tools will implement good grammar checking. I don't understand why browser developers don't focus on it. There are some companies like Grammarly solving that issue, but that should be standard feature rather than paid opt-in. I can translate website in Chrome with a single click, but I can't check grammar. And translation is a really hard task, while grammar is pretty much formalized and could be coded without any AI breakthroughs. I'm not native speaker and my text likely contains a lot of errors. For example I fix spell errors, because browser underlines them instantly, I'd fix grammar errors and may be I would develop some kind of grammar literacy after some time with proper computer assistance.
gruez 6y ago
> The extraneous apostrophe is such a common error as to border on acceptable usage. And that's sad, especially since it leads to more ambiguity in sentences.
- washadjeffmad 6y ago
  I couldn't think of an example that would trip up a native speaker. What was an example you had in mind?
  - hnick 6y ago
    I can think of a few two word statements ("It's tender") but they are meaningless outside of context anyway.

chillacy 6y ago

How do you know the author is a native speaker?

akuma73 6y ago

What always confused me was that "its" is meant to denote possession. For example, I find this to be more consistent. Bob's purpose vs. It's purpose For consistency, shouldn't we use: Bobs purpose

glial 6y ago
I can only remember the rule by remembering that “its”, “his”, and “hers” are pronouns and none have apostrophes.
brigandish 6y ago
What if their name is "Bobs"? You'd have no way to distinguish the name as names are always going to be the least consistent part of the language - would you then use "Bobss"? But what if their name is "Bobss"…? ;-) Funnily enough, if their name was Bobs then the possessive would be Bobs', but you'll see natives use Bobs's and even say "Bobses" (Gollum like) as it's confusing even for us. That kind of consistency isn't a strength of the language, and the education system is failing too many people (that's a whole other discussion).
- dragonwriter 6y ago
  > Funnily enough, if their name was Bobs then the possessive would be Bobs’ Actually, no; s’ is for possessives of plural nouns ending in s (well, an s or z sound, which might be an s, x, or z, but usually for a plural will be an s, and most plurals ending with s won't have it silent, but...); plural nouns not ending in s or singular nouns, including those ending in s, get ’s. Except for the special rules for classical and Biblical names, where then the number of syllables in the base name (which then makes the s or z sound rule more interesting, because names ending with silent s, x, or z are a thing) becomes relevant because English. https://www.merriam-webster.com/words-at-play/what-happens-to-names-when-we-make-them-plural-or-possessive https://www.merriam-webster.com/words-at-play/what-happens-t... > as it's confusing even for us. True, that.
  - brigandish 6y ago
    There's an article on the front page about Perl 7, I'm starting to wonder which one has the more difficult grammar ;-)

dsdklfjskldj 6y ago

The author is not a native speaker. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vaclav_Smil https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vaclav_Smil As a native speaker, it bothers me quite a bit.

hombre_fatal 6y ago

This is almost always a mistake in muscle memory error than the author literally not understanding "its" vs "it's". It's a typo. The author goes on to use "its" correctly the rest of the post. As a grammar nazi myself, being a typo nazi annoys me. It's as useful to the discussion as getting on your case for using the U+2019 quotation mark instead of an apostrophe in your contraction of "they’re" and "it’s" in your comment.

not2b 6y ago
I think that the mistake is common because it is triggered by a language irregularity. Normally in English, 's indicates a possessive. By that logic, something that belongs to "it" should be "it's", just as something that belongs to John is "John's". But no, we spell the possessive pronoun "its". And I've often seen autocorrect try to turn a correct "its" into an incorrect "it's" or vice versa.
- hombre_fatal 6y ago
  Sure, I can see why people mess it up. But unless you see someone consistently mess it up (thus, confusion about how it works), it's just a typo and not worth derailing conversation. At least grammar nazis can tell themselves that they're spreading wisdom.
- acheron 6y ago
  There isn’t anything irregular about it, pronouns are just different from nouns. His, hers, yours, ours, theirs, its.
- jedberg 6y ago
  For some reason my computer will underline both it’s and its with a red line, regardless of context. On the plus side, it gets me to double check that I did it right. But it’s still really annoying!
- eatingCake 6y ago
  > Normally in English, 's indicates a possessive. It seems that the opposite is true. ' indicates a contraction first, and possibly a possessive iff no such contraction exists.

sampo 6y ago

> as a non-native speaker I’m always shocked by these basic errors made by natives After some years of living in an English speaking country, I started to make these native errors myself. Maybe they are not native, after all.

bluGill 6y ago

As a native I'm always annoyed by the stupidity of English spelling and grammar. Two words pronounced the same, but spelled different. In spoken conversation we have no problem figuring out what is meant, but somehow we think readers are not smart enough to figure it out? English spelling is badly in need of reform.