Shakespeare's it's vs the modern its

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Atreides
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Shakespeare's it's vs the modern its

Post by Atreides »

I just learned something terrible today. Apparently I've been using it's incorrectly my whole life. Well at least wrong in the post Shakespeare era. According to the online Webster (likely to be trustable to a certain extent) it's today only ever means it is or it has or such. In the times of the Bard however it was not so.

I have no idea who or what taught me the ancient form but it's what I was so certain of to be correct that I always correct the possessive usage of its to it's.

Aside from my own foibles here's a question: Should Wesnoth use the older form since it is a fantasy game set in a pseudo medieval time?
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Pentarctagon
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Re: Shakespeare's it's vs the modern its

Post by Pentarctagon »

Despite the setting, we do also need players (who are in the modern time) to be able to read the dialogue and understand it. Changing just it's and its would probably lead a lot of people to ask what's going on with our grammar :P
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Atreides
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Joined: March 30th, 2019, 10:38 pm
Location: On the 2nd story of the centre village of Merwuerdigliebe turning the lights on and off

Re: Shakespeare's it's vs the modern its

Post by Atreides »

Yes, I know, I was thinking though that if one were using dialogue that was archaic (full of thou and hast and so on) it might make sense. But all in all I have owned up to my error and corrected my corrections. :)

By the way if the maintainers of the Era of Magic, ANLE, Rashy (and a couple more) are reading this, you guys have been making the same error as I saw when I searched through all my addons. I'm glad to know I'm in such august company... :-)
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