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wedrifid comments on Other people's procedural knowledge gaps - Less Wrong
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Because it is one of the most grating flaws in the language. Whether I say its or Clippy's when trying to indicate ownership depends on whether I wish to use its name or be generic. The ad hoc rules of grammar that we use are a kludgy hack and this is the most annoying kludge.
I personally choose to use the prescribed grammar. Defection would be pointless. Yet while I am usually rather particular when it comes to spelling and grammar this is one instance in which I have more respect for those who use "it's" in error than those who indicate contempt for and incomprehension of those who do not understand the mistake.
Apostrophe rules are scatterbrained, but I'm not sure how high they be on a list of grating flaws or kludges in English. I might not even have made them a separate list entry; they're a subset of homophones, and many other homophones are more detrimental to clear communication. Non-phonetic spelling rules make it harder for everyone to learn to read. Irregular conjugations add unnecessary and illogical hoops to jump through before anyone can even speak without unintentionally signaling low intelligence. Hell, I used to think of I/l/1 as a programmer's problem until I discovered that toddlers stumble on the same unnecessary ambiguity; at least programmers get to choose their own fonts.
I don't know of anyone who actually writes an upper-case "I" as a single line.
I do.
I was about to point out that I do as well, but on thinking about it I realize that I never do this when using it as a variable. Which I suppose is to be expected.
Just to be clear, are you saying you now have less respect for me, categorically, than for people who use it's incorrectly? That would be most unfortunate; I certainly hope I am misunderstanding somehow. I do not believe, incidentally, that I was expressing contempt for anyone; I apologise for my incomprehension, but it is genuine.
And as I mentioned above, its belongs to the same family as the other pronominal adjectives her, my, our, ... None of them have apostrophes (and one besides its has an s).
ETA: And whose. That's another one people seem to get wrong a lot.
I categorically have quite a lot of respect for those whose English grammar ability breaks down at the weakest point in the grammar. That I punctuate correctly while they do not is an indication not that they have learned poorly but instead that I have more completely immersed myself into the peculiarities of the syntax.
I loved the cartoon link on apostrophes that one of the cousin comments provided!
That interpretation would probably never have occurred to me. You must be using 'respect' to mean something like 'tolerance'. If so, I will try to tolerate your tolerance.