LINGUIST List 8.737

Fri May 16 1997

Disc: Punctuation

Editor for this issue: T. Daniel Seely <seelylinguistlist.org>

Directory

1. John Atkinson, Re: 8.726, Disc: Punctuation
2. Gethsemani, Re: 8.726, Disc: Punctuation

Message 1: Re: 8.726, Disc: Punctuation

At 00:49 15/05/97 -0400, Roger Lass wrote:

>. . . This also accounts for the almost universal it's for the possessive
>pronoun (though here there's an analogy to the genitive of nouns: but
>why not *hi's, *her's, which I've never seen).

I've just been reading "Emma". Jane Austen standardly writes "her's",
"their's", "your's" (but not "hi's"!). Was this standard practice back then
(first decade of the last century)?

John

Message 2: Re: 8.726, Disc: Punctuation

I, too, am fascinated by the insertion of the apostrophe, but it cannot be a
transference from Afrikaans because it is ubiquitous in the writing of native
speakers of many other languages and even in the writing of native speakers
of English, uneducated and even educated.