Eh - I thought dash was a pretty reasonable symbol for “There’s a contraction here” I don’t really care about the actual symbol as long as we stop using the same symbol for contractions and possessives. In my sample It-s would currently be written It's and the it's (a possessive) would be its if that’s what you’re asking.
Possessives always get an apostrophe outside of weird exceptions where they clash with contractions. I’m proposing we fix that. Also - let’s bring back mass possessions like “At the bake sale Moms’ baked goods are always delicious”
It’s just a matter of taste I guess. But now I’ve given it a thought and I honestly don’t get it, you want to replace the apostrophe because it has two uses (three if you count that some people like myself use it as quotes as well) with the hyphen that has many more uses like compound words, prefixes, ranges, dates, divided words at the end of a line…
So an n-dash? Which is arguably indistinguishable from a hyphen unless you put them together, so most people just use hyphens. Or another dash-like character in between?
I mean to each their own, if you like it you like it. I’m not saying your way is bad or worse, I’m just a nerd who also likes to use punctuation in a peculiar and personal way. Just to be clear that this is a light-hearted conversation and not a ‘yOu aRE WroNg!’ kinda thing. :)
“Its” is much easier to remember as possessive if you understand it’s a possessive pronoun, like his, hers, ours, and theirs. No apostrophes in any of them.
I don’t understand what you’re saying about “mass” possessives. That never went away, except for people’s who don’t know how to do it correctly.
To be honest I think we could just ditch the apostrophe in contractions altogether. I cant think of a situation in which itd make anything less clear. At worst there are perhaps uses of the fairly rare non-contraction verb “cant” that wouldn’t be immediately clear
The inconsistency of apostrophe usage in English for possessives and contractions. If it was instead written…
It’d be so much fucking easier and my OCD would be satiated.
Granted, but no hyphen.
Henceforth, possession shall be denoted with ` and contraction shall be denoted with '. Possessive plurals shall be denoted with ``.
Thanks I hate it. Also wouldn’t the “it’s” be ‘its’ without apostrophe at all?
Eh - I thought dash was a pretty reasonable symbol for “There’s a contraction here” I don’t really care about the actual symbol as long as we stop using the same symbol for contractions and possessives. In my sample
It-swould currently be writtenIt'sand theit's(a possessive) would beitsif that’s what you’re asking.Possessives always get an apostrophe outside of weird exceptions where they clash with contractions. I’m proposing we fix that. Also - let’s bring back mass possessions like “At the bake sale Moms’ baked goods are always delicious”
It’s just a matter of taste I guess. But now I’ve given it a thought and I honestly don’t get it, you want to replace the apostrophe because it has two uses (three if you count that some people like myself use it as quotes as well) with the hyphen that has many more uses like compound words, prefixes, ranges, dates, divided words at the end of a line…
Not the hyphen specifically - just a distinct symbol for contractions.
So an n-dash? Which is arguably indistinguishable from a hyphen unless you put them together, so most people just use hyphens. Or another dash-like character in between?
I mean to each their own, if you like it you like it. I’m not saying your way is bad or worse, I’m just a nerd who also likes to use punctuation in a peculiar and personal way. Just to be clear that this is a light-hearted conversation and not a ‘yOu aRE WroNg!’ kinda thing. :)
“Its” is much easier to remember as possessive if you understand it’s a possessive pronoun, like his, hers, ours, and theirs. No apostrophes in any of them.
I don’t understand what you’re saying about “mass” possessives. That never went away, except for people’s who don’t know how to do it correctly.
To be honest I think we could just ditch the apostrophe in contractions altogether. I cant think of a situation in which itd make anything less clear. At worst there are perhaps uses of the fairly rare non-contraction verb “cant” that wouldn’t be immediately clear
I’d be cool with that - I don’t care how we mark contractions just as long as we stop reusing apostrophes for it.