alt.possessive.its.has.no.apostrophe

[Carl Banks]

On Dec 15, 1:55 am, Ben Finney <bignose+hates-s... at benfinney.id.au>
wrote:
> James Stroud <jstr... at mbi.ucla.edu> writes:
> > Ben Finney wrote:
> > > James Stroud <jstr... at mbi.ucla.edu> writes:
>
> > >> Yes. I think it was the British who decided that the apostrophe
> > >> rule for "it" would be reversed from normal usage relative to
> > >> just about every other noun.
>
> It also seems an indefensible claim to say that anyone “decided” it
> would be that way, especially “the British”.
>
> > > Remember that “it” is a pronoun. I see no reversal:
>
> > Ok. Pronouns are reversed.
>
> Or, more generally: Pronouns, which are different in just about every
> other way from other nouns, are different in this way also. Is that
> about right?

No.  Most pronouns form their possessives the same way nouns do.
E.g.:

Someone's hat is over there.
One does with one's hand whatever one pleases.
Whoever's shoes are downstairs better get them.
The computer that's power is still on is wasting energy.

The seven personal pronouns and "who" are the only words to form their
possessives irregularly.  However "it" and "who" *pronounce* their
possessives exactly as nouns do.  They just spell them differently,
for no really good reason.

The way I see it, if the rule had been, "Use an apostrophe for any
word that forms it's possessive by adding an s or z sound", it would
have been less inconsistent.  Sadly, that's not the rule.  English
spelling is the Perl of orthography.


Carl Banks


(...For that matter, if the rule had been, "Never augment your words
spelling with an apostrophe", it would have really simplified
things....)