Quote:
Originally Posted by Undertoad
I'm sure they cut out the word fuck where it occurs, but do they cut out where they put the guy's head into a bowling bag?
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Man, it sure got dark early that evening.
If it helps, consider that that mischievous apostrophe represents letters that are missing -- left out:
the man's -- the man-his
the woman's -- the woman-hers
the wombat's -- the wombat-his
the wombats -- quite a few of 'em
And somewhere in English's less than systematic linguistic construction, all possessive pronouns, unlike possessive nouns, use no apostrophe at all, permitting thereby ready distinction between possessive pronoun and a couple of kinds of contractions that are soundalikes:
He/she goes to his/her
It goes to its vice it's for "it is"
We doesn't give a problem, as we say our
They goes to their, distinguished readily from they're (At least for anyone who stayed awake during English class in elementary school. Sometimes I have to wonder, given the semiliteracy and solecism I've seen.)
Summed up, English nouns take a possessive-case apostrophe, pronouns never do.
In other languages, like German, this rule is different, in that they refrain from using a possessive-case apostrophe at all.