3 ms·

Fix the damn language. It's a serious bug in written English, which is basically a garbled bag of idiotic spellings that were much more flexible applied. Now th

Fix the damn language. It's a serious bug in written English, which is basically a garbled bag of idiotic spellings that were much more flexible applied. Now that someone has marked time with a dictionary...we assume that spelling is never allowed to change again. txtrs say no.

mdemare 17y ago
But you'll break backward compatibility. Also, there are too many different accents for any one-to-one mapping between spelling and pronunciation to work.
- mattmcknight 17y ago
  Not really. Did you ever read Shakespeare? Language and spelling are always changing. It works in many other languages as well, despite the existence of accents.
  - CWuestefeld 17y ago
    Did you ever read Shakespeare? Couldn't make heads or tails of his writing. Maybe because it's shifted so much in the intervening centuries that it's only marginally comprehensible to someone who learned the modern tongue? How has Gutenberg changed the rate of change in languages? Has greater availability of printed materials held things steady longer? How is the Intertubes changing this? Has the ability to instantly view the work of people representing a zillion languages accelerated change?
uhiubiv 17y ago
It's simple you use 's in "it's" ="it is" to mark the missing 'i' and you use the 's in eg. "the writer's article" to mark a missing 'e' from "writeres" the original possessive which disappeared sometime in late Saxon (6th century) Although "its" is also possessive you don't use an apostrophe because that would confuse its with "it's" Then if the word ends in an s the rules are different unless it's a name, then the rules are different again, unless it's a biblical name then the rules are different to the last rule, except for Moses and Jesus which are exceptions to this. Then of course there are always a few special cases - St James' park (footbal ground) but St James's park (park) Of course if the word originally comes from another language then you have to use the rules from the language instead, well sometimes, say for French but not German or Dutch, actually only sometimes for Dutch depending.
- CWuestefeld 17y ago
  People always want to write the third person possessive as "it's", presumably because they're thinking the "'s" is needed to indicate possession. Why doesn't this mistake carry over to the gendered forms? That is, why don't people write "hi's" or "her's"?
mcantor 17y ago
Downvoted for feckless prescriptivism. :-(
- mattmcknight 17y ago
  Well, I am actually in favor of the opposite of prescriptivism, when the current prescription causes so many problems.
algorias 17y ago
It's possible to build good communication on top of faulty protocols. Don't blame the language. The value of the words in the dictionary stems from their widespread use. Intrinsically, they don't have any.
asciilifeform 17y ago
English isn't broken. It simply comes with a built-in IQ test.

mdemare 17y ago

But you'll break backward compatibility. Also, there are too many different accents for any one-to-one mapping between spelling and pronunciation to work.

mattmcknight 17y ago
Not really. Did you ever read Shakespeare? Language and spelling are always changing. It works in many other languages as well, despite the existence of accents.
- CWuestefeld 17y ago
  Did you ever read Shakespeare? Couldn't make heads or tails of his writing. Maybe because it's shifted so much in the intervening centuries that it's only marginally comprehensible to someone who learned the modern tongue? How has Gutenberg changed the rate of change in languages? Has greater availability of printed materials held things steady longer? How is the Intertubes changing this? Has the ability to instantly view the work of people representing a zillion languages accelerated change?

uhiubiv 17y ago

It's simple you use 's in "it's" ="it is" to mark the missing 'i' and you use the 's in eg. "the writer's article" to mark a missing 'e' from "writeres" the original possessive which disappeared sometime in late Saxon (6th century) Although "its" is also possessive you don't use an apostrophe because that would confuse its with "it's" Then if the word ends in an s the rules are different unless it's a name, then the rules are different again, unless it's a biblical name then the rules are different to the last rule, except for Moses and Jesus which are exceptions to this. Then of course there are always a few special cases - St James' park (footbal ground) but St James's park (park) Of course if the word originally comes from another language then you have to use the rules from the language instead, well sometimes, say for French but not German or Dutch, actually only sometimes for Dutch depending.

CWuestefeld 17y ago
People always want to write the third person possessive as "it's", presumably because they're thinking the "'s" is needed to indicate possession. Why doesn't this mistake carry over to the gendered forms? That is, why don't people write "hi's" or "her's"?

mcantor 17y ago

Downvoted for feckless prescriptivism. :-(

mattmcknight 17y ago
Well, I am actually in favor of the opposite of prescriptivism, when the current prescription causes so many problems.

algorias 17y ago

It's possible to build good communication on top of faulty protocols. Don't blame the language. The value of the words in the dictionary stems from their widespread use. Intrinsically, they don't have any.

asciilifeform 17y ago

English isn't broken. It simply comes with a built-in IQ test.