• Kiosade@lemmy.ca
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      10 months ago

      To be fair, whomever decided to use an apostrophe to indicate possession AND abbreviation clearly didn’t think through all the possible conflicts before going ahead and making it a thing. Should have made a separate symbol for one of them.

      • w2tpmf@lemmy.world
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        10 months ago

        Yes, thousands of years of established language development is wrong … not the individual who is unable to learn what millions of others have been able to.

        • CileTheSane@lemmy.ca
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          10 months ago

          Yes, thousands of years of established language development is wrong

          Yes, it is. Island has an ‘s’ in it as a stylistic choice to Latinize a word that has no Latin root. Literally is now defined as “not literally” which is absurd. That’s established language development.

          If people keep using “it’s” as possessive then it will become possessive, and nothing will be lost.

          • Leg@lemmy.world
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            10 months ago

            Language sticklers are an interesting phenomenon to me. Language has always evolved with its users. The only rule is that we understand each other when we use it, and that rule allows massive flexibility. Watching it evolve in real-time is more fun than trying to police someone for using an apostrophe.

            • CileTheSane@lemmy.ca
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              10 months ago

              Language sticklers are an interesting phenomenon to me

              It’s weird if you think about it. They’re basically saying “English was exactly correct at an arbitrary moment in time that I chose.” Anything different before that (such as ‘iland’) is wrong, but any new changes are an abomination.

              • Fal@yiffit.net
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                10 months ago

                That’s totally not fair. Some things are more wrong than others. And the “everything is correct even” language people are just as insufferable as the “there is exactly one correct usage” people.

                Using it’s instead of its is not slang, or an evolving use or alternative spelling. It’s simply wrong.

                • mmagod@lemmy.world
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                  10 months ago

                  i’m glad this is being discussed. i felt like i was among very few in how i felt about that use of its vs it’s.

                  just say “it is” and use it’s as the possessive… like every other word in the language and stop failing people on exams

                • CileTheSane@lemmy.ca
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                  10 months ago

                  I don’t disagree that it’s wrong, but I had no difficulty understanding the sentence so I don’t care. The correction is just a distraction.