4 ms·

> it's Why are you calling that out? The original "its" was correct without the apostrophe.

> ~~it's~~ Why are you calling that out? The original "its" was correct without the apostrophe.

MikeTheGreat 5y ago
Twisol was right - I was trying to imply strikethrough using the Markdown syntax in an attempt to depict the idea of replacing "its" with "Java's". It didn't work as well as I hoped. In my mind I can see more 'Awk' scribbles on my post, and looking at it I agree :) Adding in the 's is 100% my mistake. I've been guilty of using "it's" as the possessive form for most of my life, but that changes today! :)
- bradfitz 5y ago
  > but that changes today! :) Exciting! :)
Twisol 5y ago
Tildes are used for strikethrough in some markup dialects (including markdown), so I think they meant to depict replacing "its" with "Java's". No clue on the apostrophe.
- nayuki 5y ago
  (Forgive my grammar nazism.) The possessive form of "it" is "its": "The dog wagged its tail". But for basically everything other than pronouns and plurals, the possessive form involves adding "apostrophe s". In recent years, many people have tried to apply this rule to "it". But the problem is that "it's" is understood to be a contraction of "it is" or "it has"; furthermore, "its" already exists as the standard possessive form. One thing I say to people using "it's" is that by analogy, you also need to say: "He got he's skills. She missed she's ride. They have they's meeting."
  - MikeTheGreat 5y ago
    Thank you a ton for posting this! I've been doing this for most/all of my life and it didn't really make sense till now. I've had people explain it before but it didn't really make sense. Here's what I got from what you wrote (please correct me if this is wrong / kinda off in some way) For most words, the possessive form is "<word>'s" For pronouns (including it) there are different rules. He becomes his, she goes to hers, it goes to its. Also, words that already end in s don't get the " 's " treatment. (Question - for words that end in "s", we put the apostrophe after the existing, ending 's', yes?) Thanks again for posting this - viewing the possessive form of it as (yet another English language) exception to the normal rule of " 's " is really helpful.
  - Twisol 5y ago
    > One thing I say to people using "it's" is that by analogy, you also need to say: "He got he's skills. She missed she's ride. They have they's meeting." This is a great distillation of the intuition I've always had, but never quite verbalized.

> ~~it's~~ Why are you calling that out? The original "its" was correct without the apostrophe.

Twisol was right - I was trying to imply strikethrough using the Markdown syntax in an attempt to depict the idea of replacing "its" with "Java's". It didn't work as well as I hoped. In my mind I can see more 'Awk' scribbles on my post, and looking at it I agree :) Adding in the 's is 100% my mistake. I've been guilty of using "it's" as the possessive form for most of my life, but that changes today! :)

bradfitz 5y ago
> but that changes today! :) Exciting! :)

Twisol 5y ago

Tildes are used for strikethrough in some markup dialects (including markdown), so I think they meant to depict replacing "its" with "Java's". No clue on the apostrophe.

nayuki 5y ago
(Forgive my grammar nazism.) The possessive form of "it" is "its": "The dog wagged its tail". But for basically everything other than pronouns and plurals, the possessive form involves adding "apostrophe s". In recent years, many people have tried to apply this rule to "it". But the problem is that "it's" is understood to be a contraction of "it is" or "it has"; furthermore, "its" already exists as the standard possessive form. One thing I say to people using "it's" is that by analogy, you also need to say: "He got he's skills. She missed she's ride. They have they's meeting."
- MikeTheGreat 5y ago
  Thank you a ton for posting this! I've been doing this for most/all of my life and it didn't really make sense till now. I've had people explain it before but it didn't really make sense. Here's what I got from what you wrote (please correct me if this is wrong / kinda off in some way) For most words, the possessive form is "<word>'s" For pronouns (including it) there are different rules. He becomes his, she goes to hers, it goes to its. Also, words that already end in s don't get the " 's " treatment. (Question - for words that end in "s", we put the apostrophe after the existing, ending 's', yes?) Thanks again for posting this - viewing the possessive form of it as (yet another English language) exception to the normal rule of " 's " is really helpful.
- Twisol 5y ago
  > One thing I say to people using "it's" is that by analogy, you also need to say: "He got he's skills. She missed she's ride. They have they's meeting." This is a great distillation of the intuition I've always had, but never quite verbalized.