My difficulty with this discussion involves the labelling of something inanimate (a convention, a rule, a law ... ) as "stupid."

If there are stupid conventions, are there also "intelligent" conventions ?

Is there a rating system for measuring the degree of stupidity or intellect of conventions?

Okay, tell me it's a stupid question !

And for the record I don't actually care one way or the other but as a teacher I teach the convention and find it useful to tell the students that "its" behaves like the other possessives and doesn't have an apostrophe. I doubt very much if any of them are interested enough in the history of the apostrophe to care either.

My difficulty with this discussion involves the labelling of something inanimate (a convention, a rule, a law ... ) as "stupid."

Just for the record, I'm using the word stupid in as defined in the AH dictionary.

quote:

3. Marked by a lack of intelligence or care; foolish or careless: a stupid mistake. [..] 5. Pointless; worthless: a stupid job.

Sorry our idiolects of English differ so much as to hinder communication.

I doubt very much if any of them are interested enough in the history of the apostrophe to care either.

No doubt, no doubt, but that has nothing to do with why I find the convention stupid, which it is.

I pity all the Thai, Japanese, etc, whose writing systems don't have the apostrophe; they can't have discussions like this.

quote:

As long as we're talking about conventions that "are best adhered to," Richard, surely there is a convention for not starting a sentence with a conjunct...I'd better not go there.

But this is just one of many "rules" we learnt at school. And, simply because we learnt the "rule" at school that doesn't mean it's a rule we must adhere to. Because it's not even a rule. It's much the same as the rule that every sentence must contain a verb. I use sentences that contain no verbs. Often. And deliberately. For effect.

Knowing about such "rules" means knowing when and how they apply, and when and how they can be broken.

And I would add: the cleverness or stupidity of the rule (or convention) has little bearing on my own decision as to whether it should be adhered to. That is a far more complex decision based on my grammatical knowledge and stylistic preferences.

the cleverness or stupidity of the rule (or convention) has little bearing on my own decision as to whether it should be adhered to

I, too, must remind you that I never suggested breaking a convention merely because it is stupid.

quote:

But this is just one of many "rules" we learnt at school. And, simply because we learnt the "rule" at school that doesn't mean it's a rule we must adhere to. Because it's not even a rule. It's much the same as the rule that every sentence must contain a verb. I use sentences that contain no verbs. Often. And deliberately. For effect.

And I agree with you. I truly don't want to be argumentative; we've probably had too much of that in the past few days. Yet, I am honestly wondering what the difference is between Strunk and White's proclamation about not starting sentences with conjunctions or not ending sentences with prepositions or whatever, versus their proclamation that there is no apostrophe in the possessive form of "it." I understand that you see those conventions differently, and I am innocently wondering why. They aren't at all different to me.

Again, I don't mean to be confrontational or cantakerous. I truly don't understand.

quote:

Yet, I am honestly wondering what the difference is between Strunk and White's proclamation about not starting sentences with conjunctions or not ending sentences with prepositions or whatever, versus their proclamation that there is no apostrophe in the possessive form of "it."

Putting an apostrophe in "its" could lead to confusion with the word "it's". Confusion is my objection to most spelling mistakes, especially in such instances as "complimentary" and "complementary". The sense of the sentence should clarify matters - but that can't be relied upon.

No confusion is likely to be caused by starting sentences with conjunctions or ending them with prepositions.

The first is a matter of accuracy; the second a matter of style.

One of the most frequent errors that I see nowadays is the use of "lead" instead of "led."

I think this is due to two factors:

1) Many writers just don't know the difference, and

2) In the Spellchecker's view, "lead" is okay.

quote:

Originally posted by Richard English:
Putting an apostrophe in "its" could lead to confusion with the word "it's".

Maybe, but I'm not sure that is the reason for the convention. My understanding is this convention was not based on a decision about clarity. It was just a historical accident.

As zmj said, man's means either "of man" or "man is". This could also lead to confusion, but we don't make a distinction.