"Theirs" or "their's" or "Theirs' "

[t***@yahoo.co.uk]

The pronouns:

PERSONAL - I, we, thou, you, he, she, it, they.
INTERROGATIVE - who, what, which.
RELATIVE - who, that, which.
DEMONSTRATIVE - this, that.
DISTRIBUTIVE - each, every, either, etc...
INDEFINITE - any, some, etc...
RECIPROCAL - each other.

POSSESSIVE pronouns...

my, her, our, their.

...have an ABSOLUTE form...

mine, hers, ours, theirs.

...so the question is: did Tennyson's mess up with his apostrophe?

"Their's not to reason why,
Their's but to do and die:"

http://www.photoaspects.com/chesil/tennyson/shorts.html#charge

[Fred]

Post by t***@yahoo.co.uk
PERSONAL - I, we, thou, you, he, she, it, they.
INTERROGATIVE - who, what, which.
RELATIVE - who, that, which.
DEMONSTRATIVE - this, that.
DISTRIBUTIVE - each, every, either, etc...
INDEFINITE - any, some, etc...
RECIPROCAL - each other.
POSSESSIVE pronouns...
my, her, our, their.
...have an ABSOLUTE form...
mine, hers, ours, theirs.
...so the question is: did Tennyson's mess up with his apostrophe?
"Their's not to reason why,
Their's but to do and die:"
http://www.photoaspects.com/chesil/tennyson/shorts.html#charge

No Tennyson's didn't. Abbreviating 'thiers is' to 'thiers's would make for
an awfully difficult line in poetry.

[Fred]

Post by Fred

Post by t***@yahoo.co.uk
PERSONAL - I, we, thou, you, he, she, it, they.
INTERROGATIVE - who, what, which.
RELATIVE - who, that, which.
DEMONSTRATIVE - this, that.
DISTRIBUTIVE - each, every, either, etc...
INDEFINITE - any, some, etc...
RECIPROCAL - each other.
POSSESSIVE pronouns...
my, her, our, their.
...have an ABSOLUTE form...
mine, hers, ours, theirs.
...so the question is: did Tennyson's mess up with his apostrophe?
"Their's not to reason why,
Their's but to do and die:"
http://www.photoaspects.com/chesil/tennyson/shorts.html#charge

No Tennyson's didn't. Abbreviating 'thiers is' to 'thiers's would make for
an awfully difficult line in poetry.

Oops! Theirs of course, before I am reprimanded.

[t***@yahoo.co.uk]

Post by Fred

Post by Fred

Post by t***@yahoo.co.uk
PERSONAL - I, we, thou, you, he, she, it, they.
INTERROGATIVE - who, what, which.
RELATIVE - who, that, which.
DEMONSTRATIVE - this, that.
DISTRIBUTIVE - each, every, either, etc...
INDEFINITE - any, some, etc...
RECIPROCAL - each other.
POSSESSIVE pronouns...
my, her, our, their.
...have an ABSOLUTE form...
mine, hers, ours, theirs.
...so the question is: did Tennyson's mess up with his apostrophe?
"Their's not to reason why,
Their's but to do and die:"
http://www.photoaspects.com/chesil/tennyson/shorts.html#charge

No Tennyson's didn't. Abbreviating 'thiers is' to 'thiers's would make for
an awfully difficult line in poetry.

Oops! Theirs of course, before I am reprimanded.

Too late, have a look at the subject line: 'thiers is' is your
invention, converting it to 'theirs is' doesn't help.

[Robert Bannister]

Post by Fred

Post by Fred

Post by t***@yahoo.co.uk
PERSONAL - I, we, thou, you, he, she, it, they.
INTERROGATIVE - who, what, which.
RELATIVE - who, that, which.
DEMONSTRATIVE - this, that.
DISTRIBUTIVE - each, every, either, etc...
INDEFINITE - any, some, etc...
RECIPROCAL - each other.
POSSESSIVE pronouns...
my, her, our, their.
...have an ABSOLUTE form...
mine, hers, ours, theirs.
...so the question is: did Tennyson's mess up with his apostrophe?
"Their's not to reason why,
Their's but to do and die:"
http://www.photoaspects.com/chesil/tennyson/shorts.html#charge

No Tennyson's didn't. Abbreviating 'thiers is' to 'thiers's would make for
an awfully difficult line in poetry.

Oops! Theirs of course, before I am reprimanded.

Amendment accepted, but I find the "their is" explanation strange. I
always understood those lines to mean "theirs", meaning something like
"their duty".

[t***@yahoo.co.uk]

Post by Fred

Post by t***@yahoo.co.uk
PERSONAL - I, we, thou, you, he, she, it, they.
INTERROGATIVE - who, what, which.
RELATIVE - who, that, which.
DEMONSTRATIVE - this, that.
DISTRIBUTIVE - each, every, either, etc...
INDEFINITE - any, some, etc...
RECIPROCAL - each other.
POSSESSIVE pronouns...
my, her, our, their.
...have an ABSOLUTE form...
mine, hers, ours, theirs.
...so the question is: did Tennyson's mess up with his apostrophe?
"Their's not to reason why,
Their's but to do and die:"
http://www.photoaspects.com/chesil/tennyson/shorts.html#charge

No Tennyson's didn't.

...that's Sod's Law...

Post by Fred
Abbreviating 'thiers is' to 'thiers's would make for
an awfully difficult line in poetry.

...whereas that is risible.

[Donna Richoux]

<***@yahoo.co.uk> wrote:

[snip]

Post by t***@yahoo.co.uk
POSSESSIVE pronouns...
my, her, our, their.
...have an ABSOLUTE form...
mine, hers, ours, theirs.
...so the question is: did Tennyson's mess up with his apostrophe?
"Their's not to reason why,
Their's but to do and die:"
http://www.photoaspects.com/chesil/tennyson/shorts.html#charge

Who says the person who typed up the page "photoaspects.com" etc., did
it the way Tennyson did?

More authoritative sites, like Bartlett's Quotations, say it is
"Theirs". Which makes sense.

http://www.bartleby.com/100/453.63.html

Using random websites to argue about correct quotations is very dicey.

[dcw]

Post by Donna Richoux
Who says the person who typed up the page "photoaspects.com" etc., did
it the way Tennyson did?
More authoritative sites, like Bartlett's Quotations, say it is
"Theirs". Which makes sense.

I have always believed that Tennyson wrote "their's", and I didn't get
it from a web site -- they hadn't been invented. Unfortunately I can't
check at the moment.

David

[Alan Jones]

Post by dcw

Post by Donna Richoux
Who says the person who typed up the page "photoaspects.com" etc., did
it the way Tennyson did?
More authoritative sites, like Bartlett's Quotations, say it is
"Theirs". Which makes sense.

I have always believed that Tennyson wrote "their's", and I didn't get
it from a web site -- they hadn't been invented. Unfortunately I can't
check at the moment.

I, too, had supposed Tennyson's original to be "their's", which in his day
was a possible but oldfashioned form. However, the University of Virginia
owns the manuscript, or at least a manuscript:
http://rds.yahoo.com/S=96768902:D1/CS=96768902/SS=96768913/SIG=11uuubvej/*http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/britpo/tennyson/TenChar.html

This site has photocopies of a few lines, but not the one we're discussing.
However, the transcript there seems very careful, faithfully reproducing
Tennyson's punctuation (or lack of it), his frequent use of capital letters
and his many ampersands. So I have to
conclude that he wrote "theirs" in this manuscript as reproduced in the
transcript.

My only doubt is that the photocopied bits look suspiciously tidy. Is this
the copy that the printers received, or a later neat version for an admirer
in which he either corrects his first version or simply omits the apostrophe
as he does most of the commas? And where does the intruded apostrophe first
appear in print, I wonder? The poem was reprinted many times, often with
other minor poems in a volume where "Maud" was the major item.

Bartlett's? Probably theirs is a standardised version. They don't quote
Shakespeare in old spelling.
.
Alan Jones

[Donna Richoux]

Post by dcw

Post by Donna Richoux
Who says the person who typed up the page "photoaspects.com" etc., did
it the way Tennyson did?
More authoritative sites, like Bartlett's Quotations, say it is
"Theirs". Which makes sense.

I have always believed that Tennyson wrote "their's", and I didn't get
it from a web site -- they hadn't been invented. Unfortunately I can't
check at the moment.

All right. All the reference books I could find say "Theirs" -- does
anyone find otherwise? -- but a very long article on the origin of the
poem (1854), comparing seven manuscript versions and nine printer
proofs, comes down on the side of it originally being "Their's". They
don't discuss any implications (they seem more concerned about
"blundered").

http://etext.virginia.edu/etcbin/browse-sb?id=sibv038&images=bsuva/sb/im
ages&data=/texts/english/bibliog/SB&tag=public
Studies in Bibliography, Volume 38 (1985)
"The Charge of the Light Brigade": The Creation of a Poem
by
EDGAR SHANNON and CHRISTOPHER RICKS

So I should not have implied that only ignorance could have provided
versions with "their's".

It would be mildly interesting to know when it switched from the early
"Their's" to today's standard "Theirs", but I doubt it would be easy to
find out.

Making of America might give a clue... They give only one hit for
"their's not to reason", an 1865 memoir. They give 18 hits for "theirs
not to reason", the first one listed happening to be in an 1873
anthology. So it was changed quite long ago, whether that was done with
or without the author's blessing.

[John Dean]

Post by Donna Richoux

Post by dcw

Post by Donna Richoux
Who says the person who typed up the page "photoaspects.com" etc.,
did it the way Tennyson did?
More authoritative sites, like Bartlett's Quotations, say it is
"Theirs". Which makes sense.

I have always believed that Tennyson wrote "their's", and I didn't
get it from a web site -- they hadn't been invented. Unfortunately
I can't check at the moment.

All right. All the reference books I could find say "Theirs" -- does
anyone find otherwise? --

Yep. Ox Dic of Quot, which I imagine to have been carefully researched,
has "Their's" (three times) in the 3rd edition and they're still
"their's" there in the 5th edition.
OED Uses Tennyson as a cite "1855 Tennyson Charge Light Brigade ii,
Their's not to make reply, Their's not to reason why, Their's but to do
and die." following the head entry for 'theirs - possessive pronoun':

Forms: 4-5 þayres, thayres, þair(e)s, thaires, 4-6 þairis, thairis,
þeires, theires, 5 þers, therys, 5-6 theyr(e)s, theyr's, 6 therse, 8-9
their's, 5- theirs (Sc. thairs). [In form a double possessive, f. their
+ -es (cf. hers, ours, yours). Of northern origin.]
The form of the possessive pron. their, used when no n. follows, i.e.
either absolutely or predicatively: That or those belonging to them. (=
F. le, la leur, les leurs; G. der, die, das ihrige, die ihrigen.)

Other examples are dotted through the OED eg:
" 1836 Dickens Pickw. (1837) xx. 209 'Dodson and Fogg-sharp practice
their's-capital men of business is Dodson and Fogg, Sir.'"

So I think we can expand our collective wisdom to include the lessons
from OED with your earlier apercu and General Montgomery's classic so
aue's Dicta should now begin:

1. Never start a land war in Asia.
2. Using random websites to argue about correct quotations is very
dicey.
3. Suggesting 19th Century authors have messed up with their apostrophes
is tempting providence until you have checked on the way apostrophes
were used in the 19th Century.

Coming next week - Did the author of Beowulf screw up by omitting an
apostrophe from "Beowulf maþelode, bearn Ecþeowes"?
The week after - "Apostrophe - did the Greeks have a word for it?"

[Donna Richoux]

Post by John Dean

Post by Donna Richoux

Post by dcw

Post by Donna Richoux
Who says the person who typed up the page "photoaspects.com" etc.,
did it the way Tennyson did?
More authoritative sites, like Bartlett's Quotations, say it is
"Theirs". Which makes sense.

I have always believed that Tennyson wrote "their's", and I didn't
get it from a web site -- they hadn't been invented. Unfortunately
I can't check at the moment.

All right. All the reference books I could find say "Theirs" -- does
anyone find otherwise? --

Yep. Ox Dic of Quot, which I imagine to have been carefully researched,
has "Their's" (three times) in the 3rd edition and they're still
"their's" there in the 5th edition.

Okay, but I have to say I did check AskOxford.com where the "Little
Oxford Dictionary of Quotations" shows it as "theirs".

http://www.askoxford.com/results/?view=quot&freesearch=reason&branch=141
23648&textsearchtype=exact

The baby Oxford doesn't know as much as the big siblings, I guess.

[dcw]

["Their(')s" in Tennyson]

Post by John Dean

Post by Donna Richoux
All right. All the reference books I could find say "Theirs" -- does
anyone find otherwise? --

Yep. Ox Dic of Quot, which I imagine to have been carefully researched,
has "Their's" (three times) in the 3rd edition and they're still
"their's" there in the 5th edition.
OED Uses Tennyson as a cite "1855 Tennyson Charge Light Brigade ii,
Their's not to make reply, Their's not to reason why, Their's but to do
and die."

I was going to give those references too, now that I've had time to
check. However, Webster's New International 2nd ed. cites it without
the apostrophe, so the experts differ.

Todd's edition of Johnson gives one citation for "their's" and seven
for "theirs". I can't tell whether that's Todd (1818) or Johnson
(1755). "There's" is from Roscommon, Wentworth, Earl of, and Google
gives his dates as 1633-1685. Life's too short to chase up all the
other sources, but it does show that both forms were around for quite
a while.

David