From owner-freebsd-chat Sat Apr 18 05:34:57 1998 Return-Path: Received: (from majordom@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) id FAA27288 for freebsd-chat-outgoing; Sat, 18 Apr 1998 05:34:57 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from owner-freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG) Received: from ns1.yes.no (ns1.yes.no [195.119.24.10]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) with ESMTP id MAA27281 for ; Sat, 18 Apr 1998 12:34:53 GMT (envelope-from eivind@bitbox.follo.net) Received: from bitbox.follo.net (bitbox.follo.net [194.198.43.36]) by ns1.yes.no (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id MAA05516; Sat, 18 Apr 1998 12:34:51 GMT Received: (from eivind@localhost) by bitbox.follo.net (8.8.8/8.8.6) id OAA04919; Sat, 18 Apr 1998 14:34:50 +0200 (MET DST) Message-ID: <19980418143450.05176@follo.net> Date: Sat, 18 Apr 1998 14:34:50 +0200 From: Eivind Eklund To: Bob Bishop Cc: chat@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: cvs commit: src/sys/dev/dpt dpt_control.c src/sys/gnu/ext2fs... References: <199804180411.MAA16043@spinner.netplex.com.au> <3538336F.41C67EA6@whistle.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Mailer: Mutt 0.89.1i In-Reply-To: ; from Bob Bishop on Sat, Apr 18, 1998 at 11:15:38AM +0100 Sender: owner-freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.org On Sat, Apr 18, 1998 at 11:15:38AM +0100, Bob Bishop wrote: > At 6:00 am +0100 18/4/98, Julian Elischer wrote: > >[...] > >sorry to contradict you Peter but this is the trick.. > > > >"its" is a single word, the same as: > >"his" and "her" > > > >as in: > > > >his cat, her cat, its cat > > > > > >the other version, e.g. > >"Joh's crow" or "John's VM code", > >shouldn't be confused with this.. > > FWIW, the the trick with the apostrophe is that it indicates something has > been left out. This is obvious in the case of can't <=> cannot. For "John's > cat" you'd have to go back maybe 500 years to hear someone say "John his > cat", but I believe that's more or less how the "'s" possessive originated. Explict possessives in english? Hmm. I was fairly it was derived from the case (ger kasus) of the word; ie, the old genetive case present in latin, greek and the germanic languages. This resulted/results in an s ending for possessives. Where that case originally came from I don't know, but it seems to have been a carry over from the original indo-european, if you look at which places it exist :-) Eivind. To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message