Looking for the best way to translate an idiom

[Steve Holden]

Yes. I think it was the British who decided that the apostrophe rule for
"it" would be reversed from normal usage relative to just about every
other noun. I'm not sure the purpose--maybe it was to give compulsive
proofreaders a raison d'etre.

In fact it applies to personal pronouns generally, though in English
most personal pronouns have an irregular genitive.

I me my mine
you you your yours
he him his his
she her her hers
it it its its
we us our ours
you you your yours
they them their theirs

regards
Steve

 

[Steve Holden]

It also seems an indefensible claim to say that anyone “decided†it
would be that way, especially “the Britishâ€.

It's our language, dammit! Ours, ours, ours!

This decision was actually taken at a meeting of the Society of British
pedants on November 23, 1786. This led to a schism between the British
and the newly-independent Americans, who responded by taking the "u" out
of colour, valour, and aluminium.

Or, more generally: Pronouns, which are different in just about every
other way from other nouns, are different in this way also. Is that
about right?

Just think of them as "nounpros" and you won't go wrong.

regards
Steve

 

[Steve Holden]

It also seems an indefensible claim to say that anyone “decided†it
would be that way, especially “the Britishâ€.

It's our language, dammit! Ours, ours, ours!

This decision was actually taken at a meeting of the Society of British
pedants on November 23, 1786. This led to a schism between the British
and the newly-independent Americans, who responded by taking the "u" out
of colour, valour, and aluminium.

Or, more generally: Pronouns, which are different in just about every
other way from other nouns, are different in this way also. Is that
about right?

Just think of them as "nounpros" and you won't go wrong.

regards
Steve

 

[Tim Chase]

This led to a schism between the British and the
newly-independent Americans, who responded by taking the "u"
out of colour, valour, and aluminium.

Darn Americans and their alminim.... ;-)

Next thing you know, they'll be putting an I in TEAM.[1]

<gdr>

-tkc


[1] http://www.quotedb.com/quotes/2417

 

[MRAB]

It's our language, dammit! Ours, ours, ours!

This decision was actually taken at a meeting of the Society of
British pedants on November 23, 1786. This led to a schism between
the British and the newly-independent Americans, who responded by
taking the "u" out of colour, valour, and aluminium.

Actually the Americans have been a bit confused about how to spell
aluminium. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aluminium_(element).

Just think of them as "nounpros" and you won't go wrong.

I've just remembered a pronoun that does take an apostrophe: the
indefinite pronoun "one". Not that one uses it that often.

 

[MRAB]

This led to a schism between the British and the
newly-independent Americans, who responded by taking the "u"
out of colour, valour, and aluminium.

Darn Americans and their alminim.... ;-)

Next thing you know, they'll be putting an I in TEAM.[1]

<gdr>

-tkc


[1] http://www.quotedb.com/quotes/2417

But there is ME in TEAM.

 

[Steve Holden]

This led to a schism between the British and the
newly-independent Americans, who responded by taking the "u"
out of colour, valour, and aluminium.

Darn Americans and their alminim.... ;-)

Next thing you know, they'll be putting an I in TEAM.[1]

It's called humour. Or humor. Or incompetence ;-)

regards
Steve

 

[Carl Banks]

It also seems an indefensible claim to say that anyone “decided” it
would be that way, especially “the British”.



Or, more generally: Pronouns, which are different in just about every
other way from other nouns, are different in this way also. Is that
about right?

No. Most pronouns form their possessives the same way nouns do.
E.g.:

Someone's hat is over there.
One does with one's hand whatever one pleases.
Whoever's shoes are downstairs better get them.
The computer that's power is still on is wasting energy.

The seven personal pronouns and "who" are the only words to form their
possessives irregularly. However "it" and "who" *pronounce* their
possessives exactly as nouns do. They just spell them differently,
for no really good reason.

The way I see it, if the rule had been, "Use an apostrophe for any
word that forms it's possessive by adding an s or z sound", it would
have been less inconsistent. Sadly, that's not the rule. English
spelling is the Perl of orthography.


Carl Banks


(...For that matter, if the rule had been, "Never augment your words
spelling with an apostrophe", it would have really simplified
things....)

 

[Lie Ryan]

(...For that matter, if the rule had been, "Never augment your words
spelling with an apostrophe", it would have really simplified
things....)

Th next dae, wee aul wil bee speling liek this

 

[Pete Forman]

> It's our language, dammit! Ours, ours, ours!

> This decision was actually taken at a meeting of the Society of
> British pedants on November 23, 1786. This led to a schism between
> the British and the newly-independent Americans, who responded by
> taking the "u" out of colour, valour, and aluminium.

I'd thought that the main schism was triggered by a tax on tea but it
turns out that it was due to an apostrophe after t. ;-)

 

[Aaron Brady]

Darn Americans and their alminim.... ;-)

Next thing you know, they'll be putting an I in TEAM.[1]

It's called humour. Or humor. Or incompetence ;-)

There's an 'I' in Python.

 

[Pete Forman]

Steve Holden wrote:
This led to a schism between the British and the
newly-independent Americans, who responded by taking the "u"
out of colour, valour, and aluminium.

Darn Americans and their alminim.... ;-)

Next thing you know, they'll be putting an I in TEAM.[1]

It's called humour. Or humor. Or incompetence ;-)

> There's an 'I' in Python.

There's no 'F' in Python in this thread.

 

[Hendrik van Rooyen]

8<----- stuff blaming Davy for "aluminum" ----------

Isn't Davy a Brit?

No, he was a Brit.
He's dead now.
His safety lamp lives on.
It's a good thing its got that heat-sink sieve-
it's enabled countless miners
to flee when they see its change of colour.
Thus it's saved the lives of a lot of canaries,
and that's of ecological importance.

Spot the apostrophe error, if you can.

- Hendrik

 

[Hendrik van Rooyen]

There's an 'I' in Python.

No!
It's supposed to be :

There's a T in python.

"an" is only used when the next
word starts with a vowel, as in:

It's been an hour now...

All this is because English speakers are
genetically incapable of moving their
tongues.



- Hendrik