On Fri, Sep 9, 2016 at 4:02 PM, chadvellacott@sasktel.net wrote:
[No offense intended. (:^) ]
none taken - we're all learning - let's have some fun with this.
Those who live in glass houses, should not throw stones. "its" is _not_ a Relative Pronoun. Relative pronouns are "who what where when why how whom whose".
oh! yes, sorry, you're right - i meant "possessive pronoun".
"it" is a Personal Pronoun, like "he she they". If it has a possessive form, then that form is a Possessive Pronoun (like "theirs"), or else a Possessive Pronominal Adjective (like "their"). I guess that thou meant the concept of Possessive Pronoun, _not_ Relative Pronoun.
yes i did. let's take a look, google "its" and that comes up with two top links one for "its" and one for "it's". let's look at the one for "it's":
http://www.dictionary.com/browse/it-s
Word Origin
See more synonyms on Thesaurus.com 1. contraction of it is: It's starting to rain. 2. contraction of it has: It's been a long time.
Can be confused it's, its (see confusables note at its )
interesting! i'll use that one in future, i didn't realise that "it's" can be a short-hand for "it has".
Definition:
"pronoun, nominative it, possessive its or (Obsoleteor Dialect) it, objective it; plural nominative they, possessive their or theirs, objective them."
so the word "it" is qualified as a "pronoun", and the word "its" is defined as a *possessive* pronoun.
the definition in merriam-webster is much less helpful but gives good examples: http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/its
this one's i can see it's much more helpful: http://www.myenglishpages.com/site_php_files/grammar-lesson-possessive-adjec...
it's also showing that "its" is a possessive pronoun. i wonder why i said "relative pronoun" when in all other instances i've said "possessive"? huh.
But, I am not aware of any _other_ English word becoming possessive by mere "s" withOUT an apostrophe. So to decide that "its" is possessive, seems an unreasonable dogmatic "exception" to the general rule above.
it's explained here: https://www.writingforward.com/grammar/homophones/homophones-its-and-its
English usage has many UNreasonable "exceptions" to it's rules.
ahhh! gotcha! you mean "english usage has many Unreasonable "exceptions" to its (possessive pronoun) rules" :)
So, English seems unreasonably difficult to learn as a second language.
it turns out that numbers, as an example, in all european languages, cause a huge amount of difficulty for children, resulting in significantly-delayed development of numerical arithmetic skills. in the far east, numbers are really *really* straightforward: 0-9 have their own word, you just read the digits out using those 0-9 words, to the point where on the HK stock exchange i heard that people are able to communicate at ten numbers *PER SECOND* which is phenomenal. my friend phil also pointed out to me the "flash-card" technique of training kids in japan as young as seven and eight to do six-digit mental arithmetic, where they're expected to have 100% accuracy on something mad like... i can't remember exactly what he said but i believe it was in excess of two six-digit sums *per second*. i may be underestimating there so as not to trip any "total disbelief verging on bullshit" mental radars.
in french, the number "98" is *five syllables* with a massive amount of physical effort required to morph the mouth between some of the syllables! qua-tre vingt dix huit. pronounced "ka-tr-uh va-i-ngg dee-ss-wh-ee-t" and translated in english "four-twenty ten-eight"!!
(This
is not "sour grapes". English is my first language, and I did _not_ have special trouble with it in school.) Are we unwilling, to abandon arbitrary "exceptions" so that others can more-easily learn _our_ _first_ language and communicate with _us_?
english is the international language for programming, and programming is about absolute clarity and precision. so in this *very specific* field... i'd say yes, absolutely.
*outside* of the world of computing, whilst it just makes people who should know better (such as in marketing), it just makes people "look dumb". i've seen both BT *and* Shell as recently as 10-15 years ago put up huge signs across all their stores in the UK make basic fundamental mistakes with the use of possessive pronouns.
http://www.copyblogger.com/5-common-mistakes-that-make-you-look-dumb/
but even if they "look dumb" it's not so critical - it's not so important in its level of clarity that a product be marketed in its best possible light, but it's clearly important in its level of security and effectiveness for a program to be at its most accurately specified and actioned, as well as being important that it's well-documented.
If a person means "it is", then that is nearly as easy to say and type, as "it's". (With typing on a "QWERTY", the difference is merely- thumb down on space-bar and next middle-finger sliding forward to "i", versus little finger awkwardly stretching outward to apostrophe.)
*ROTFL* yeah... the hilarious thing is: it's actually more physical effort to type the *correct* word "its" than it is to type the wrong phrase "it's" :)
I do not presume that I shall change any one else's mind on this. (But, considering all of the significant evidence that I am aware of, I will not change on this.)
... and you'd be perfectly within your right to self-determination to make such a declaration, and to continue to adhere to it for as long as you perceive it to be useful to you.
now, do allow me to summarise what *my* position is (from the above). as a hardware engineer in training, and a software engineer, clarity and unambiguity is absolute and paramount. one small mistake in hardware can cost $10,000 or even more. so with that training (and level of penalty for not getting it right) comes an in-built "radar' for pointing out *any* possible ambiguity, especially in written language. and that's why i really appreciated you pointing out the mistake that i made.
l.