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Strategies & Market Trends : Heinz Blasnik- Views You Can Use -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: GraceZ who wrote (2835)	6/29/2003 7:13:20 PM
From: Wyätt Gwyön	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 4907

it's just never made sense to me that the contraction gets the apostrophe. yes, the possessive its is bassackwards from the other possessive spellings, like "Eat at Joe's". another one that can also trip people up is let's, as in "let's eat" (1st person plural), where many would think to write "lets eat" (3rd person singular). but if you think the English writing system is screwed up, just try Japanese. two phonetic alphabets (one exists only to give structural expression to a xenophobic mindset), several thousand Kanji (Chinese characters), and usually at least several different readings and sometimes meanings for each Kanji, depending on context and what phonetic characters they are or are not combined with. i have heard that the Kanji with the most readings is sei, as in Sensei or teacher--a researcher told me this character has at least 16 different readings. incidentally, i saw the movie Spellbound recently--about the US national spelling bee. amazingly, one of these kids had at least four or five spelling coaches. they prepare for it like it's the biggest event of their lives (which it probably was, exacerbated no doubt by movie shooting and ESPN coverage). i guess the spelling bee has become something of a national mania for hyperactive parents thanks to ESPN. i left the theater thinking it would be better to have ESPN coverage of a kiddie chess tournament--chess is much better as it's international and you can do it your whole life. also a bit more intellectually compelling than spelling words--though Kasparov calls it "mental torture". likewise, one of the parents saw the spelling bee and called it "child abuse". but i guess chess can't match the magic and popular appeal of a spelling bee, with its wonderful blend of the familiar (we have all had spelling trubble from time to time) and the arcane (kirtle, opsimath, banns, estilbe, yada yada). chess just has the arcane. it's a fun movie, btw.