I agree. This is a casual public message board. Write to get your point across and ignore the minor autocorrect errors that happen. |
Funny you should mention this. I've been convinced for a long that the apostrophe plague on society was brought on by the invention of the iphone. Ever since the first one I had back in 2008, I noticed it didn't know words like a PP's example of nannies vs nanny's. I truly believe the accumulation of decades of the iphone "teaching" this incorrectly has brought us to the apostrophe overuse crisis we're in today. |
It was trained by the corpus of the user's. |
no one cares. |
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r u ok?
touch grass or maybe grass's |
| Gramatik Macht Frei. |
Grammatik macht frei. |
All you have to do is write out it’s to “it is”. “The lion injured it is paw”. Doesn’t make sense so it has to be its. Same with “who’s” which an abbreviation for “who is”. “ Who is slipper is this” doesn’t make sense. Same with you’re and your, were and we”re and other words that are contractions. Contractions are just two words merged |
You’re absolutely right, and I unashamedly share your pedantry. Here’s one for you. What about a sign saying “The Smith’s” posted outside a house? If the Smiths are identifying themselves as the family living there, it’s clearly incorrect. However, what if the Smith family is actually identifying the house as theirs? The “house” is implied and unwritten, much like the Understood You in an imperative sentence, i.e., The Smith’s (House). Do we let them slide?? |
| I'm now wondering when and how the possessive apostrophe got started to begin with. I know that 250 years ago there was much less consistency in how people wrote things, even those who were well educated. |
How old are you? This is embarrassing. |
Most other languages have helper words or suffixes for possession. The English system is somewhat unusual. According to Wikipedia, it mirrors the French elison which is used to prevent an awkward double vowel sound. English writers copied the form, but used it for plural and possessive. From the pack of lies:
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Yes. PP is wrong. |
| People ignorant of history and the breadth of the world think that whatever someone told them when they were young is a universal rule. The ignorant pedant marks themself as someone whose words are not deserving of consideration. |
It would be The Smiths' House. Duh. |