• chiliedogg@lemmy.world
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      2 days ago

      “Whose” is a stupid word that doesn’t deserve to exist. Anything else possessive the “'s” works, and we all understand “Who’s”.

      • ayyy@sh.itjust.works
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        1 day ago

        It’s to distinguish from the contraction that who’s already expands to: “who is”. In this sentence saying “who is” makes no sense.

      • tal@lemmy.today
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        1 day ago

        Anything else possessive the “'s” works

        Apostrophe-s isn’t always what you’d use for a possessive.

        “Its” is the possessive. I took its temperature.

        “It’s” is a contraction of “it is”. It’s cold outside.

        • chiliedogg@lemmy.world
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          23 hours ago

          Same issuewith “its” and “it’s”. It’s arbitrary when the apostrophe-s is used with other nouns.

          “John’s house has a cracked foundation.”

          “The house’s foundation is cracked.”

          “John’s house has a crack in it’s foundation.”

          It’s perfectly understandable and complaining about it is just being pedantic with no purpose. The Oxford comma is no longer seen as always being necessary because language evolves, and we should be moving that direction with other arbitrary language and spelling rules. If the meaning isn’t changed by the presence of the apostrophe, then it doesn’t matter whether or not it’s there.

          • everett@lemmy.ml
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            21 hours ago

            “Its” is not arbitrary.

            his hers theirs its

            Start adding apostrophes before the s and see what happens.