I’d agree with you if I saw “hi’s” and “her’s” in the wild, but nope.
Comment on We need to stop pretending AI is intelligent
warbond@lemmy.world 2 months agoKinda dumb that apostrophe s means possessive in some circumstances and then a contraction in others.
I wonder how different it’ll be in 500 years.
DirigibleProtein@aussie.zone 2 months ago
It’s “its”, not “it’s”, unless you mean “it is”, in which case it is “it’s “.
sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works 2 months ago
Would you rather use the same contraction for both? Because “its” for “it is” is an even worse break from proper grammar IMO.
MrScottyTay@sh.itjust.works 2 months ago
Proper grammar means shit all in English, unless you’re worrying for a specific style, in which you follow the grammar rules for that style.
Standard English has such a long list of weird and contradictory roles with nonsensical exceptions, that in every day English, getting your point across in communication is better than trying to follow some more arbitrary rules.
Which become even more arbitrary as English becomes more and more a melting pot of multicultural idioms and slang. Although I’m saying that as if that’s a new thing, but it does feel like a recent thing to be taught that side of English rather than just “The Queen’s(/King’s) English” as the style to strive for in writing and formal communication.
I say as long as someone can understand what you’re saying, your English is correct. If it becomes vague due to mishandling of the classic rules of English, then maybe you need to follow them a bit. I don’t have a specific science to this.
elbarto777@lemmy.world 2 months ago
I understand that languages evolve, but for now, writing “it’s” when you meant “its” is a grammatical error.
HugeNerd@lemmy.ca 2 months ago
Standard English has such a long list of weird and contradictory roles
rules.
MrScottyTay@sh.itjust.works 2 months ago
Swypo
HugeNerd@lemmy.ca 2 months ago
It’s called polymorphism. It always amuses me that engineers, software and hardware, handle complexities far beyond this every day but can’t write for beans.
warbond@lemmy.world 2 months ago
Do you think it’s a matter of choosing a complexity to care about?
HugeNerd@lemmy.ca 2 months ago
If you can formulate that sentence, you can handle “it’s means it is”. Come on. Or “common” if you prefer.
warbond@lemmy.world 2 months ago
Yeah, man, I get it. Language is complex. I’m not advocating for the reinvention of English, it was just a conversational observation about a silly quirk.
JackbyDev@programming.dev 2 months ago
Software engineer here. We often wish we can fix things we view as broken. Why is that surprising ?Also, polymorphism is a concept in computer science as well