Whose! Who's means who is

dcminter 6 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Further off-topic: You're not wrong, but maybe you should be. It's one of the most pointless irregular grammar rules in English. Nobody is ever confused by the wrong usage of the apostrophe here (when spoken there's no voicing of it). Native writers of English often get it wrong. If we had an Academy Anglaise we'd just regularise this usage. I give it 50 years max before possessive "who's" is considered correct (along with "it's").

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joshstrange an hour ago | parent | next [-]

> I give it 50 years max before possessive "who's" is considered correct (along with "it's").

"It's" is one I've struggled with a lot. I understand "It's" -> "It is" but my brain wants to add an "'s" for possessive-ness. It just feels more right. I'm been able to mostly break that bad habit but I still don't like it.

	▲	dcminter an hour ago \| parent [-]
		It's a strange rule. I'd be interested if any more serious grammarians can explain where this irregularity comes from.

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skrebbel 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

The weirdest thing about this is that eg “Pete’s” is correct. You can say “Pete’s over there” vs “Pete’s house is nice”, and the meaning is clear.

You guys really need an Academy Anglaise indeed! (I wasn't aware that does not exist before your comment)

	▲	dcminter 5 hours ago \| parent [-]
		The one that people get wrong all the time is "its" vs "it's" for exactly this reason. By the usual use of posessive apostrophe you would expect "it's" and yet that's only ever correct if you're eliding something (i.e. you mean "it is", "it has" etc.) Honestly if we (in England) really had an institute of that kind we'd probably just end up formalising the weird spellings and grammar as being "right" instead of what we have now where our grammar rules are descriptive instead of prescriptive. Who knows how the differences with American, Indian, Australian, etc. dialects of English would be handled, but I'm sure we'd make a big mess of it somehow. Edit: incidentally I now live in Sweden where there is such an institute, and they do seem (to my ignorant understanding) to make sensible updates to the dictionaries etc. to reflect actual modern pronounciation - but I'm still sure my homeland would figure out a way to mess it all up ;)

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michaelsshaw 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Whose cares