On Fri, Sep 9, 2016 at 4:02 PM, <[email protected]> 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-adjectives.php 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. _______________________________________________ arm-netbook mailing list [email protected] http://lists.phcomp.co.uk/mailman/listinfo/arm-netbook Send large attachments to [email protected]
