It's a special case

Post #229,495 by ChrisR 10/13/05 5:22:33 PM Reply	It's a special case Contraction The cat's out of the bag. It's out of the bag. Possessive The cat's feet are out of the bag. It's feet are out of the bag.
Post #229,497 by drewk 10/13/05 5:36:22 PM Reply	Except that the possessive of "it" is "its" not "it's" I assume this is because the plural of "cat" is "cats", so you need the apostrophe to distinguish the possessive "cat's". But since the plural of "it" is "they", you don't need the apostrophe to tell that "its" is a possessive. Wow, that's stupid now that I think about it. === Purveyor of Doc Hope's [link\|http://DocHope.com\|fresh-baked dog biscuits and pet treats]. [link\|http://DocHope.com\|http://DocHope.com]
Post #229,498 by jake123 10/13/05 5:40:31 PM Reply	Not quite the right reason "Its" the possessive is like that to distinguish it from the contraction "It's" from "It is". It's a special case; an exception to its more normal form with other nouns. --\n-------------------------------------------------------------------\n* Jack Troughton jake at consultron.ca \n [link\|http://consultron.ca\|http://consultron.ca] [link\|irc://irc.ecomstation.ca\|irc://irc.ecomstation.ca] \n Kingston Ontario Canada [link\|news://news.consultron.ca\|news://news.consultron.ca] *\n-------------------------------------------------------------------
Post #229,499 by ben_tilly 10/13/05 5:55:27 PM Reply	Its? It's stupid! If you see the sentence, "It's its." written down, it's unambiguous which its is it's. If you hear its, which its is its? It's much harder to tell! Just another way that spoken and written English differ. Cheers, Ben I have come to believe that idealism without discipline is a quick road to disaster, while discipline without idealism is pointless. -- Aaron Ward (my brother)
Post #229,500 by jake123 10/13/05 5:57:18 PM Reply	Not that hard to tell "It's its" is quite unambiguous as to its meaning, while "Its it's", being "Its it is" is simply nonsensical. --\n-------------------------------------------------------------------\n* Jack Troughton jake at consultron.ca \n [link\|http://consultron.ca\|http://consultron.ca] [link\|irc://irc.ecomstation.ca\|irc://irc.ecomstation.ca] \n Kingston Ontario Canada [link\|news://news.consultron.ca\|news://news.consultron.ca] *\n-------------------------------------------------------------------
Post #229,501 by ben_tilly 10/13/05 5:59:55 PM Reply	It's ambiguous "It's its?" "It's it's!" Cheers, Ben I have come to believe that idealism without discipline is a quick road to disaster, while discipline without idealism is pointless. -- Aaron Ward (my brother)
Post #229,502 by Ashton 10/13/05 6:26:49 PM Reply	Ahh, YAN argument for Victor Borge's Audible Punctuation :-)
Post #229,660 by CRConrad 10/15/05 5:08:38 PM Reply	Fascinating, how so many native speakers of English... ...can have so many theories -- and all be so wrong. "Its" is neither a contraction, nor a possessive form of a noun or an ordinary (nominative) pronoun; it's a whole 'nother class of word, a _possessive pronoun_. "Its" has the exact same kind of relation to "it" as "his" to "he", "her" and "hers" to "she", "my" and "mine" to "me", and so on. (You'll notice that the other possessive pronouns, "my", "his", "her", etc, don't have any apostrophes either.) Yes, you were the most wrong, Critter, using the damn apostrophe... But you can take some small comfort from the fact that all the guys who pointed out that this was wrong of you, were themselves wrong as to why it was so. Now, though, you -- all of you! -- know better... So don't do it again. HTH. [link\|mailto:MyUserId@MyISP.CountryCode\|Christian R. Conrad] (I live in Finland, and my e-mail in-box is at the Saunalahti company.) Your lies are of Microsoftian Scale and boring to boot. Your 'depression' may be the closest you ever come to recognizing truth: you have no 'inferiority complex', you are inferior - and something inside you recognizes this. - [link\|http://z.iwethey.org/forums/render/content/show?contentid=71575\|Ashton Brown]
Post #229,685 by Ashton 10/15/05 10:41:35 PM Reply	Hey.. it's like this-yere with readers of Holy-scriptures n'stuff too - everybody's got an opinion about what's In one o' them Manuals -- and the loudest never even ackshully read the sucker with any comprehension - just the Readers Disgust Condensed McBook. (Guessing that Garrison Keillor rarely makes it to your bailiwick?) Just on Lake Wobegone; a test for the chicanery of your arcanery, extent of your Murican trivia-cache, CRC: The Whiffenpoof Song Bowdlerized as a P\ufffdan to English Majors, delivered via nicely in-tune chorus; all refs to personal pronouns in the feminine, commencing - From the tables down at Mary's ... and concluding, ..then we'll go and have our nails done and our hair done. :-\ufffd
Post #229,686 by boxley 10/15/05 10:42:45 PM Reply	its is a polit way to write "grunt" "the reason people don't buy conspiracy theories is that they think conspiracy means everyone is on the same program. Thats not how it works. Everybody has a different program. They just all want the same guy dead. Socrates was a gadfly, but I bet he took time out to screw somebodies wife" Gus Vitelli Any opinions expressed by me are mine alone, posted from my home computer, on my own time as a free american and do not reflect the opinions of any person or company that I have had professional relations with in the past 49 years. meep questions, help? [link\|mailto:pappas@catholic.org\|email pappas at catholic.org]
Post #229,708 by hnick 10/16/05 9:03:14 AM Reply	I's will do it at each and every possible opportunity now.. Its the easiest, cheapest way to get the attention of others without actually having anything pertinent to say. Easy misspellings would be second. This is only a means of communication. We (BIG generalization) know the language and how to use and abuse it. Typing a draft for a RFC is somewhat different; I have my whole team looking over my shoulder and nitpicking every comma and word usage. Here, we, I, anyway, post in first draft mode as we would speak. As in meatspace, I often think about what I am about to say before spewing, but sometimes I don't. At one end of the posting spectrum, we have people who post in a convoluted style which forces one to make an attempt to understand what is being said. At the other, we have posters who attempt to post in the style of a southern gentleman, parodying a migrant worker quoting a drunken buffalo. In Alaska. If it makes a difference to the content (uncle jack and the horse, for example), it's not unreasonable to check on the spelling and punctionation. If it goes though without ambiguity, however, the message is still understood. If all you have to do is complain about the syntax, punctuation, and font type, you have way too much time on your hands. If you have something to say, just fucking say it. If you have doubts about whether your sense of humor is understood, or even doubts if you actually have a sense of humor, there are a plethora of emoticons (disgusting little buggers...) that you can use. We're just here to talk, not bitch about the language. Or write a new and improved (I hate that phrase) dictionary. No, not dictionary. Picees... place?? oh fuckit, Amy, you do it... Hugh
Post #229,711 by Another Scott 10/16/05 10:19:30 AM Reply	(I think we found Hugh's button.) [image\|http://brainstorming.typepad.com/photos/uncategorized/emoticon.jpg\|0\|A smiley\|300\|459] Cheers, Scott.
Post #229,720 by hnick 10/16/05 11:47:33 AM Reply	MWHAAHAAAA!!
Post #229,731 by CRConrad 10/16/05 5:03:26 PM Reply	"Pisces", perhaps? HTH! Loved the "punctionation", though. Hugs 'n' kisses, [link\|mailto:MyUserId@MyISP.CountryCode\|Christian R. Conrad] (I live in Finland, and my e-mail in-box is at the Saunalahti company.) Your lies are of Microsoftian Scale and boring to boot. Your 'depression' may be the closest you ever come to recognizing truth: you have no 'inferiority complex', you are inferior - and something inside you recognizes this. - [link\|http://z.iwethey.org/forums/render/content/show?contentid=71575\|Ashton Brown]
Post #229,732 by pwhysall 10/16/05 5:08:42 PM Reply	...as in "off"? </edmund_blackadder> Peter [link\|http://www.no2id.net/\|Don't Let The Terrorists Win] [link\|http://www.kuro5hin.org\|There is no K5 Cabal] [link\|http://guildenstern.dyndns.org\|Home] Use P2P for legitimate purposes!
Post #229,734 by imqwerky 10/16/05 5:39:23 PM Reply	Halleluiah! Well said, Hugh! Although sometimes it is fun to razz people for their crappy spelling/punctuation, I agree with you. This place is where we can let our collective hair down. It can be messy sometimes. I only get grumpy on the subject if I can't figure out what the hell someone is trying to say. Mostly our rantings are merely the written equivalent of applying noogies. We just love ya, doncha know! Peachy! Amy Oh Freddled Gruntbuggly!
Post #229,798 by Ashton 10/17/05 6:07:56 AM Reply	Yabut.. the scary part is - in the larger milieu (if anything really does exist outside this continuum?) - the dysfunction in the basics of English is only increasing. And since any attorney can point out the havoc wreaked (another fine word used less.. then oft mispeeled or mis-spake) - by just one of those misplaced commas, well - (Then too, it's been so long since I had to cite the Rulez, instinct is quicker and generally close-enough.) But ya can't do instinct later.. if'n ya never learned this stuff first. Many ~mid-20s never did, it seems by what I read elsewhere. No es una problema for basic comprehension here, as you point out -- but I don't find CRC's reminders (while maybe shovelling shit against that tide of homogenized everything) to be other than a small effort to innoculate? against the daily language murder - much of it more and more like Ad-speak and TLA-nonspeak, elsewhere. As we become post-literate via all those transistors and omnipresent icons, videos. Suddenly it's Memphis (and not the one in TN); glyphs all around + bizspeak with \ufffds in lieu of any prior and difficult thought process. As for the different styles here - yeah, nice simple declarative sentences from primers are fine for nice simple ideas and for sequential instruction manuals. And everyone could standardize on that as Style Sheet #1. I suppose. As to the others: none compels. If the content isn't worth it, it won't be missed. (I can't comment upon the onerous requirement that some extra thought might be required for non-W3C Standard Style Sheets - might need to quote a line from Richard the III, in decidedly non-standard phrasing.) Diffrunt strokes, er //s R'Us LLC
Post #229,877 by jb4 10/17/05 5:35:06 PM Reply	Ooops! CRC gets all medieval on yer ass! jb4 shrub●bish (Am., from shrub* + rubbish, after the derisive name for America's 43 president; 2003) n. 1. a form of nonsensical political doubletalk wherein the speaker attempts to defend the indefensible by lying, obfuscation, or otherwise misstating the facts; GIBBERISH. 2. any of a collection of utterances from America's putative 43rd president. cf.* BULLSHIT

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