
Is This the Future of Punctuation? - jamesbritt
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204618704576641182784805212.html?KEYWORDS=punctuation#articleTabs%3Darticle
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fuzionmonkey
I think it's about time British-style or "logical punctuation" of quotes
becomes standard.

Especially coming from a programming background, it just makes more sense.
Periods should go outside the quote if they aren't actually part of the quote.

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cpeterso
I used to be a grammar nazi, but now I accept that we are witnessing hyper-
evolution of written language. Before the internet, I didn't realize how
pervasively people confused _its/it's_ and _lose/loose_. (I knew
_there/their/they're_ was a common problem.)

I previously assumed languages typically evolved through "erosion" by dropping
letters or spaces as a matter of saving time or space. But in today's
computerized world, time and space are cheaper, so grammar _exceptions_ seem
to what is eroding: _its/it's_ is an apparent punctuation exception and
_lose/loose_ is a pronunciation exception.

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obiterdictum
I am not a native English speaker, but I'm constantly dumbfounded as to why
anyone would even entertain the idea that "its/it's" are in any way similar.
When you substitute one with another, _the sentence just does not parse_. It
stops making sense.

By conflating "its" and "it's", you are overloading the meaning of "its",
making the language more ambiguous.

Perhaps this also has to do with me being accustomed to more formal
(programming) languages.

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radarsat1
The reason it's confusing is that 's after a personal pronoun usually
indicates possession, whereas this is the opposite for it's/its, so in that
sense it's an exception to a rule, which people have a hard time remembering.

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parbo
What personal pronouns have 's for the possesive form? Mine's? Your's? Hi's?
Her's? Their's?

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LukeShu
Ah, you found the rule for when you don't use it. Contrary to many textbooks,
teachers, and websites, the lack of an apostrophe in "its" is not an exception
--you don't use the apostrophe for pronouns. "His". "Hers". "Yours". As
apposed to "Jack's", "Julie's", "the user's".

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SamReidHughes
"Its" is only used in places where "his", "her", and "your", which don't have
the s's, are used. People don't use "its" in places where they'd use "hers" or
"yours". It's awkward.

~~~
radarsat1
That's a better example. My explanation was wrong, but it's still an exception
in the context you provide.

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spoondan
This reminds me of Keith Houston's wonderful blog, Shady Characters
(<http://www.shadycharacters.co.uk/>). Keith has written at length on the
pilcrow, interrobang, and sarcasm marks (all touched upon briefly in this
article) amongst other punctuation marks.

I am somewhat surprised that Shady Characters was not cited by the article.
There is simply no better place to learn the surprising, entertaining
histories of our punctuation.

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LeafStorm
The problem with the apostrophe is that possessive forms in English are just
so horribly screwed that nobody has any idea how to even say them properly,
much less how to apply punctuation.

~~~
Shenglong
Sometimes, but most cases are quite simple. I learned the difference between
they're/there/their sometime before grade 8, and I generally expect people I
converse with to recognize that distinction.

As for possessive forms - that's even easier. In most cases, if something
belongs to someone, use an apostrophe. If it doesn't, then don't. Okay, it can
get confusing, but in most cases, it's not.

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gergles
LeafStorm was talking about _saying_ them properly. How do you say:

"That [thing] is Jess's"?

(conversely, is it Jess' or Jess's or should we be forced to say 'belongs to
Jess')?

Now, imagine you're not a native speaker and you have to figure out how to say
that. That's the difficulty.

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Shenglong
The thing is, I'm not a native speaker; it's not really something I struggled
with when I learned English. I believe the general rules I learned were:

plural & no possession: no apostrophe

singular, possession & name doesn't end with _s_ : 's

singular, possession & name ends with _s_ : '

plural, possession & name doesn't end with _s_ : s'

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cpeterso
I'm a native English speaker and my name ends in 's', yet even I waffle about
whether I just use an apostrophe. I generally include an apostrophe just for
consistency.

My heuristic is: if I would pronounce the extra sound, then include the
apostrophe. Unfortunately, this would not help non-native speakers.. <:)

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sp332
We can say that Shenglong's rules are "English", and then whatever you do in
real life is your "dialect".

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ZeroGravitas
And yet if you try to trace back why those "rules" have any authority and
you're likely to end-up back at a claim that it was what everyone did in their
real life.

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sp332
The rules have the authority we give them. Either we give up on having an
English language that we can agree on, or we have arbitrary rules.

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graiz
I think the sarcasm mark (snark) is stupid. Doesn't make any sense⸮

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helen842000
I think it's useful when having a conversation via IM.

Avoids misunderstanding and adds humour.

I've also heard it referred to as the sarcastrophe :)

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joejohnson
I like the Snark symbol. Is that in unicode?

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simcop2387
The closest is the reversed question mark '⸮'. You can read more about it at
The Wiki,
[https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Irony_punctua...](https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Irony_punctuation)

~~~
WiseWeasel
That showed up as a blank square on my iPhone. Here on HN, I've seen /~ used
to denote sarcasm. Alternatively, the winking emoticon ; ) or tongue sticking
out emoticon : P work as well.

