5 ms·

I'm going to delete this post in 30 minutes, but man, I'm just screaming to say... it is so peculiar that he consistently kept making that mistake (along with a

by clicks 14y ago

I'm going to delete this post in 30 minutes, but man, I'm just screaming to say... it is so peculiar that he consistently kept making that mistake (along with a bunch of other ones). It looks like the guy is a graduate from Stanford's business school... and is the co-founder of Pricenomics. What the heck. Edit: heh, I guess I won't delete it now (to preserve continuity of extant conversation). Sorry.

stephengillie 14y ago
Because grammatical ability is correlated with business acumen? Edit: sorry Clicks it was too tempting :)
- pyre 14y ago
  Well, there are things like proofreading, and having an editor.
- clicks 14y ago
  Well, I think it probably wouldn't be a stretch to say that strong communication abilities correlate to business acumen. If I'm going to be reading a piece of writing that keeps on getting these basic things wrong I'm going to get distracted in a bad way.
michaelt 14y ago
It looks like the guy is a graduate from Stanford's business school... and is the co-founder of Pricenomics. What the heck. I used to make that mistake - or what I assume was the mistake, which now seems to have been corrected. Many guides to using apostrophes [1,2,3,4] say they can be used for contractions (the dog's outside) and to indicate possession (the dog's ball) - Why shouldn't something possessed by "it" use a possessive apostrophe? Some people tried to correct my using of "it's" to indicate possession by explaining "Apostrophes are used for contractions like it is" which was unconvincing as obviously they can be used to indicate possession. It wasn't until I got to college that someone gave me a satisfactory explanation: It/Its belongs to the same class of words as he/his, her/hers, your/yours, who/whose which do not follow normal apostrophe usage rules as the rules are descriptive, not prescriptive and nothing obliges the language and its users to be consistent. [1] http://www.economist.com/style-guide/apostrophes http://www.economist.com/style-guide/apostrophes [2] http://www.angryflower.com/bobsqu.gif http://www.angryflower.com/bobsqu.gif [3] http://lilt.ilstu.edu/golson/punctuation/apostrophe.html http://lilt.ilstu.edu/golson/punctuation/apostrophe.html [4] http://theoatmeal.com/comics/apostrophe http://theoatmeal.com/comics/apostrophe
- stephengillie 14y ago
  I hadn't heard that grouping, which actually makes a lot of sense. A teacher taught me a simpler rule: "It's" normally has an apostrophe, while most words don't. So instead of adding a apostrophe to show possession, we remove it. Basically we're toggling the apostrophe state. Or..."it's" always results in a NOT output when compared to other outputs.
  - likeclockwork 14y ago
    "its" is equivalent to his and hers, neither of which have apostrophes.

by clicks 14y ago

stephengillie 14y ago

Because grammatical ability is correlated with business acumen? Edit: sorry Clicks it was too tempting :)

pyre 14y ago
Well, there are things like proofreading, and having an editor.
clicks 14y ago
Well, I think it probably wouldn't be a stretch to say that strong communication abilities correlate to business acumen. If I'm going to be reading a piece of writing that keeps on getting these basic things wrong I'm going to get distracted in a bad way.

michaelt 14y ago

It looks like the guy is a graduate from Stanford's business school... and is the co-founder of Pricenomics. What the heck. I used to make that mistake - or what I assume was the mistake, which now seems to have been corrected. Many guides to using apostrophes [1,2,3,4] say they can be used for contractions (the dog's outside) and to indicate possession (the dog's ball) - Why shouldn't something possessed by "it" use a possessive apostrophe? Some people tried to correct my using of "it's" to indicate possession by explaining "Apostrophes are used for contractions like it is" which was unconvincing as obviously they can be used to indicate possession. It wasn't until I got to college that someone gave me a satisfactory explanation: It/Its belongs to the same class of words as he/his, her/hers, your/yours, who/whose which do not follow normal apostrophe usage rules as the rules are descriptive, not prescriptive and nothing obliges the language and its users to be consistent. [1] http://www.economist.com/style-guide/apostrophes http://www.economist.com/style-guide/apostrophes [2] http://www.angryflower.com/bobsqu.gif http://www.angryflower.com/bobsqu.gif [3] http://lilt.ilstu.edu/golson/punctuation/apostrophe.html http://lilt.ilstu.edu/golson/punctuation/apostrophe.html [4] http://theoatmeal.com/comics/apostrophe http://theoatmeal.com/comics/apostrophe

stephengillie 14y ago
I hadn't heard that grouping, which actually makes a lot of sense. A teacher taught me a simpler rule: "It's" normally has an apostrophe, while most words don't. So instead of adding a apostrophe to show possession, we remove it. Basically we're toggling the apostrophe state. Or..."it's" always results in a NOT output when compared to other outputs.
- likeclockwork 14y ago
  "its" is equivalent to his and hers, neither of which have apostrophes.