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Subject:Re: Re[2]: Its and It's From:David Dvorkin <dvorkin -at- BOLIX -dot- COM> Date:Mon, 22 Sep 1997 11:34:35 -0600
Virginia Day wrote:
> The modernists (futurists?) among us have been trying for several (10?
> 15?) years to eliminate apostrophes. One argument for eliminating
> them is to "internationalize" the English, because other languages do
> not use apostrophes for possessive. However, contractions, its/it's,
> and other such uses for apostrophes also are included sometimes.
Interesting. The science-fiction writer and critic Damon Knight has been
campaigning to eliminate apostrophes for years.
He used to conduct his campaign partly on Genie, the online service where
he hangs out. Some of us on there delighted in coming up with sentences
which would be made unacceptably confusing or ambiguous by eliminating
apostrophes. Damon is fairly silent on the subject these days.
David Dvorkin
Qualix Group, Inc.
Boulder Development Ctr. mailto:dvorkin -at- bolix -dot- com
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