[Gllug] Monthly GLLUG grammar report (Seriously OT now!)

[John Winters]

On Tue, 2002-11-26 at 13:00, Dylan wrote:
> On Tuesday 26 November 2002 08:38, John Winters wrote:
> > On Mon, 2002-11-25 at 23:15, Dylan wrote:
> > > On Monday 25 November 2002 23:00, Jonathan Harker wrote:
> > > > On Tuesday 26 Nov 2002 10:35 am, Dylan wrote:
> > > > > > Your welcome             =   You're welcome
> > > > >
> > > > > The baneful apostrophe. Still, if we were taught what they were for
> > > > > rather than when to use them it might be easier!
> > > >
> > > > OH, and my favourite:
> > > >
> > > > it's = it is
> > > > its  = belonging to it
> > >
> > > The problem here, I think, is that according to the basic rule they BOTH
> > > need one: contraction and genitive. Why the pattern
> > > his/its/hers/yours/ours isn't pointed out I'll never know!
> >
> > What do you mean it isn't pointed out?  Don't children still learn?
> >
> > "To show possession, put an apostrophe S on all words, singular or
> > plural, except where there is a plural S in which case put the
> > apostrophe after the S.  There are five exceptions - ours, yours, hers,
> > its, theirs."
> 
> Six, in fact: his < he's (genitive _'s_) in the formation and structure of the 
> pronoun paradigm.

Except that "his" isn't another word with just an s tagged on.

    ours	our
    yours	your
    hers	her
    its		it
    theirs	their

    his		hi

> And they aren't exceptions, they are part of a different rule.

They're exceptions to the rule as stated.

> >
> > One of many things we had to learn off by heart.
> 
> Indeed, if one is over 25. But learning by rote is futile when it comes to 
> language.

Except for the fact it demonstrably works.  Obviously you can't learn
everything by rote but a small proportion learned by rote is just as
useful in English as it is in Maths.

John

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