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#10970 11/23/00 04:23 AM
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I'll bet this is a perennial one but couldn't find (didn't really know where to look for) anything on "its" vs. "it's".

As I get older I become more convinced there should be an apostrophe of ownership. Please help me put a stop to my wonderings for once and for all.

Stales


#10971 11/23/00 08:05 AM
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For what it's worth, his, her and its as possessives come from similar constructions and do not take the apostrophe. This is useful, of course, because it leaves it's free to be a contraction of it is.

Now here's where I run out of firm-ish knowledge and enter areas of discussion where I may be like the blind leading the blind, but that has never stopped me before. :

The original apostrophe for possession was also a contraction - in the earlier case, of John his table, say, becoming John's table. And so on. In that sense, the only possessives in the language are his, her/hers, its and their/theirs. All others may be considered long-forgotten contractions of these - hence the apostrophes.

Come on you ayleurs, awadians, wordsmiths and others - correct me...


#10972 11/24/00 06:48 AM
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The modern apostrophe s or s apostrophe for possession comes ultimately from the Old English (aka Anglo-Saxon) genitive case. Old English like modern German had different cases (inflections) to express grammatical relationships such as subject, direct object, indirect object, and possession. The most common possessive inflection was -es. When the e stopped being pronounced it gradually dropped out of the spelling but was replaced by the apostrophe to show that it "should" be there. Over time this was extended to include all possessives whether or not they had originally had an e. The idea that 's is short for his is a myth.

Bingley


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#10973 11/24/00 11:54 AM
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The modern apostrophe s or s apostrophe for possession comes ultimately from the Old English (aka Anglo-Saxon) genitive case..

Bingley, that is very lucid and informative and almost totally news to me. Thank you very much.


#10974 11/24/00 12:13 PM
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Thanks for that. There goes one of my pet theories...


#10975 11/25/00 07:38 PM
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Hello all, I'm new to chat. Its is the neuter. "The board at its meeting" not "the board at their meeting" To use "their" you should say/write "Board members at their meeting."
The it's is a contraction meaning it is. Is this any help or am I out in left field? Wow


#10976 11/25/00 10:46 PM
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Welcome, wow!
I suspect you are indeed out in left field on "its" vs "their." This has been discussed here before (in the context of "their" as a politically correct way of avoiding gender in the singular - "A person should be nice to their neighbor" - a usage I abhor), but I'm betting the Brit contingent among us would find nothing wrong with the use of "their" as a pronoun for "The Board." They use collectives such as "government", sports teams' names, etc in the plural. Which kind of makes sense, if you're thinking component-wise. For example, "The board disagreed among itself" sounds absurd.

(awaiting cross-Pond/Antipodean comment, clarification, correction)



#10977 11/27/00 01:39 AM
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>For example, "The board disagreed among itself" sounds absurd.<

Not that absurd. Sounds like an everyday occurrence for this particular board!


#10978 11/27/00 09:41 AM
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(awaiting cross-Pond/Antipodean comment, clarification, correction)

Anna, I believe you're right. There is a strong tendency in the UK to refer to collective nouns in the plural. "The team were beaten...", "The Board have reached an agreement..." and so on. Anglophone and anglophile though I am, it is one tendency that jars on me. I prefer to use the singular where possible. (At my last job I ruthlessly eradicated any references to the company in the plural - at least from all our marketing literature. I couldn't stand the "XYZ are a recruitment agency..." are a???? Arrrgggghhhh.)


#10979 11/27/00 09:38 PM
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are a????

What's so bad about "are a"? You're not going to say "We is a team" are you?


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