its

Tatterhood

missing an apostrophe

Sredni Vashtar

own leg, like a ham hock.

KilgoreTrout

lack of said apostrophe is what differentiates it from the "it's" thread.

Princess Alice

As a kid I always found it really unintuitive that possessive "its" doesn't have an apostrophe, because, well, possessives usually have an apostrophe, right?

I realize now that it actually matches the pattern for possessive pronouns (his, hers, etc.) but 7-year-old Alice didn't think of it that way.

Sredni Vashtar

The apostrophe is there in possessives because it was -es in earlier forms of English, like in German.

Just an interesting titbit.

Bee

i hate these word crimes

Tatterhood

Central Avenue said:

As a kid I always found it really unintuitive that possessive "its" doesn't have an apostrophe, because, well, possessives usually have an apostrophe, right?

I realize now that it actually matches the pattern for possessive pronouns (his, hers, etc.) but 7-year-old Alice didn't think of it that way.

Yeah, same.

glennmagusharvey

Central Avenue said:

As a kid I always found it really unintuitive that possessive "its" doesn't have an apostrophe, because, well, possessives usually have an apostrophe, right?

I realize now that it actually matches the pattern for possessive pronouns (his, hers, etc.) but 7-year-old Alice didn't think of it that way.

You know what's even more unintuitive?

The use of apostrophes for plurals.

Why not use quotation marks to set off the thing instead?

Bee

You're not supposed to use apostrophes for plurals.  It only happen's because grocer's don't know how word's work.

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/greengrocer's_apostrophe

Princess Alice

One of the few exceptions where you do you apostrophes for plurals is letters.

"I got straight A's", because "As" just looks like the word "as".

Bee

Technically you're not supposed to use apostrophes there either, but italicize the letter instead to set it apart.  But at least it's accepted as a practical violation.

Something similar happens with plural acronyms.

Princess Alice

I was always taught that the apostrophe was an acceptable alternative just because italicizing isn't always an option (for example, in handwriting)

glennmagusharvey

You can't always italicize, especially when using plaintext or handwriting.

I sometimes decide to just append an s to make the plural even on a single letter, such as counting the number of Es in a passage, but the thing is that looks confusing.

Meanwhile, some people insist that the game series is named Y's.  No, it's not; it's named after something called Ker Ys.

Salix Babylonika

The thing is that these things are taught in so many different ways that there's no standard and probably never will be.

For example!

most people use apostrophes for plural possessives (the farmers' union, the students' council) and sometimes you'll hear that you should put an apostrophe on to the end of a word that ends in S and is also possessive (Nas' album), but I was also taught by not one but several people that you should do the same with words that end in Z. Granted you're only very rarely doing that in the first place (Taz' cartoons) but it does come up from time to time.

Crystal

I was taught so many different things that I just take it case-by-case, go with the flow, and be happy that there's so much variety, and that it's all ultimately understandable in the end. And when needed as something specific, generally specified.

Klinotaxis

I just think the etymology of "'s" is neat.

glennmagusharvey

Klinotaxis said:

I just think the etymology of "'s" is neat.

I think the etymology of "'s"'s neat.

Tachyon

The rules for apostrophes are more confusing than most people realize; it's an exceedingly overworked punctuation mark.  According to Lynne Truss in Eats Shoots and Leaves, it's actually correct to use an apostrophe when pluralizing letters or mentions of words (e.g. "and's and but's").

In the 19th century it was also correct to use an apostrophe when pluralizing a loanword ending in a vowel, such as "banana's" or "folio's", though this has not been considered correct for a long time.

Imipolex G

the crux of the biscuit

Klinotaxis

I thought folio was Latin.

Tachyon

It is.

Tachyon

Well, it's a loanword, so it's also English.  The English plural is "folios".

glennmagusharvey

raisons d'etre

maitres d'

coups d'etat
coups de grace

octopodes

glennmagusharvey

and then there are the ones people argue over:

anime/animes

pikachu/pikachus

Tachyon

"Pikachu" is the canonically correct plural

i can only recall ever encountering "animes" in contexts where it was plainly jocular; otherwise it would tend to suggest the speaker is ignorant i think.

Tatterhood

the plural of anime is animorphs

Bee

I'm like 80% sure all Pokemon species pluralize the same as their singular.

Tatterhood

I think canonically 100% of them do.

Klinotaxis

A herd of Miltanks, a homicide of Houndooms,

Tachyon

Tatterhood said:

I think canonically 100% of them do.

yeah, i'm fairly sure this is correct

Bee

Granted, that's probably because too many species already met the old 10-character limit.  Still.

I've seen an interesting fan convention too where you only capitalize it if you're talking about a specific one, but the species is lowercase like Mass Effect does with the aliens.

Tatterhood

Tachyon said:

Tatterhood said:

I think canonically 100% of them do.

yeah, i'm fairly sure this is correct

oh, now I realize I misread Bee's post, I thought he said 80% of Pokémon rather than 80% sure