Oh, it's happened, Robin; I've marked all too many papers with such
errors, if i may, in them.
Of course, my 'cure' is just to drop the apostrophe completely, since
so few know how to use the thing.
Doug
On 22-Aug-05, at 12:32 PM, Robin Hamilton wrote:
> From: "Jon Corelis" <[log in to unmask]>
>
>> One is the use of it's as a possessive, as in "This table has one of
>> it's
>> legs too short."
>
> I think this drifts-in because most possessives (though not pronouns
> like
> "its") are signalled by an apostrophe. It's not simply a gratuitous
> error
> (few are), but in a horrible way emerges from the pressure of the
> overall
> orthographic system of English.
>
> Which makes me wonder why this *hasn't* (as far as I know) happened to
> "your's", "our's" and "their's" (or "yours'", "ours'" and "theirs'").
>
> It's poor old "it is" that I really feel sorry for -- rapidly having
> its
> orthographic identity swallowed up by a mere possessive pronoun.
>
> Robin
>
> (Whose hour's space of time is short)
>
> [Whose? Ours? Space of time is short!]
>
> {Who's ours? Space of time, off course.}
>
>
Douglas Barbour
11655 - 72 Avenue NW
Edmonton Ab T6G 0B9
(780) 436 3320
Certain gardens are described as retreats when they are really attacks.
Ian Hamilton Finlay
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