James Stroud <jstr...@mbi.ucla.edu> writes: > Yes. I think it was the British who decided that the apostrophe rule > for "it" would be reversed from normal usage relative to just about > every other noun.
Remember that “it” is a pronoun. I see no reversal: he she we they me you it he's she's we're they're I'm you're it's his hers ours theirs mine yours its No reversal there; the apostrophe rule is consistent. All pronouns take an apostrophe *only* for abbreviating the contraction of “foo is” or “foo has” or some other two-word form. The possessive never takes an apostrophe on a pronoun. You can find plenty of inconsistencies and rules with exceptions in the English language, but “possessive pronoun doesn't use an apostrophe” isn't one of them. -- \ “Don't you try to outweird me, I get stranger things than you | `\ free with my breakfast cereal.” —Zaphod Beeblebrox, _The | _o__) Restaurant At The End Of The Universe_, Douglas Adams | Ben Finney -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list