Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

News for nerds, stuff that matters

Olympic Committee Chooses XP Over Vista

Posted by samzenpus on Wed Aug 15, 2007 06:53 AM
from the if-it's-not-as-broken dept.
Vinit writes "The popularity of Windows XP is still making things difficult for Vista. Now Vista has again suffered a major setback, with Lenovo (Olympic 2008' official sponsor) installing XP on it's machines to run the Olympic Games' vital PC-related tasks. Vista will only be used in internet lounges set up for athletes to use during the games."

Related Stories

[+] Video Surveillance Identifies Threat Patterns 13 comments
Ponca City, We Love You writes "When the 2008 Olympic Games kick off in Beijing next year, organizers will be using a sophisticated computer system to scan video images of city streets looking for everything from troublemakers to terrorists. The IBM system, called the Smart Surveillance System, uses analytic tools to index digital video recordings and then issue real-time alerts when certain patterns are detected. It can be used to warn security guards when someone has entered a secure area or keep track of cars coming in and out of a parking lot. The system can also search through old event data to find patterns that can be used to enable new security strategies and identify potential vulnerabilities. IBM is also developing a similar surveillance system for lower Manhattan, but has not yet begun deploying that project. "Physical security and IT security are starting to come together," says Julie Donahue, vice president of security and privacy services with IBM. "A lot of the guys I'm meeting on the IT side are just starting to get involved on the physical side.""
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
Display Options Threshold:
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
  • Hmm (Score:4, Insightful)

    by okinawa_hdr (1062664) on Wednesday August 15, @06:56AM (#20234735)
    (http://www.hdrjapan.com/)
    At what point does an OS mature enough that it becomes "enough for general use"? Maybe XP is that mark.
    • Re:Hmm by an.echte.trilingue (Score:3) Wednesday August 15, @07:00AM
      • Re:Hmm by GiMP (Score:3) Wednesday August 15, @07:08AM
        • Re:Hmm by Anonymous Coward (Score:1) Wednesday August 15, @07:19AM
      • Re:Hmm by Phisbut (Score:2) Wednesday August 15, @08:27AM
      • Re:Hmm by jo42 (Score:1) Wednesday August 15, @03:20PM
    • Re:Hmm (Score:5, Funny)

      by MrMr (219533) on Wednesday August 15, @07:10AM (#20234837)
      When it's ready for the desktop.
      [ Parent ]
    • Re:Hmm by couchslug (Score:2) Wednesday August 15, @07:30AM
      • Re:Hmm by Anonymous Coward (Score:1) Wednesday August 15, @09:30AM
        • Re:Hmm by couchslug (Score:2) Wednesday August 15, @09:52AM
    • Re:Hmm (Score:5, Interesting)

      by mwvdlee (775178) on Wednesday August 15, @08:54AM (#20235873)
      (http://www.vanderlee.com/)
      Vista certainly improves on a few things. Most notably (for me), is the way the GUI is handled internally. OTOH, with these nice improvements also comes a lot of other crap that I (and many others) explicitely DON'T want. As it stands, XP can be improved upon (i.e. anything that OSX, Linux, etc. currently does better than XP), but Vista isn't the answer to that. Vista would have a better chance at adoption if Microsoft's marketing department didn't have a say over what goes in technically.
      [ Parent ]
      • Re:Hmm by ultranova (Score:2) Wednesday August 15, @04:25PM
      • 1 reply beneath your current threshold.
    • Re:Hmm by kinglink (Score:1) Wednesday August 15, @10:00AM
    • Olympic Committee Chooses XP v. Linux, Vista, OSX by WED Fan (Score:2) Wednesday August 15, @10:26AM
      • 1 reply beneath your current threshold.
    • Damn you Steve Balmer!!! by Sfing_ter (Score:1) Wednesday August 15, @09:52AM
    • 2 replies beneath your current threshold.
  • It is a natural decision. (Score:4, Informative)

    by rolfc (842110) on Wednesday August 15, @06:58AM (#20234755)
    My employer took the decision to migrate from win2k to XP, and we will roll it out this fall. Vista was proposed but we do not consider it ready for use.
  • It's Probably Just (Score:5, Insightful)

    by JamesRose (1062530) on Wednesday August 15, @07:00AM (#20234769)
    THe specialist software that it runs not yet being rewritten for vista- I'm sure it'd work on vista, but in an international event like this you really don't want to get things misbehaving or acting just slightly differently. Of course in 4 years time vista will be standard and they'll be no question of using anything else- or possibly using the next version of Windows.
  • Indeed (Score:3, Insightful)

    by jayminer (692836) on Wednesday August 15, @07:00AM (#20234771)
    (http://dogac.senol.com/)
    Smart choice indeed. I for myself would have chosen Windows XP over Vista, because even though my personal choice is Linux, I will not force anyone on using it, whatsoever. My new laptop (issued by the new company I work) comes with Vista, and making my life a hell. I am going to install Linux on it if it won't hurt any company policy, as all I do is to develop Java applicatons and run some office work.
    • Re:Indeed by ozmanjusri (Score:2) Wednesday August 15, @08:09AM
      • Re:Indeed by apt142 (Score:2) Wednesday August 15, @09:20AM
    • Re:Indeed by morgan_greywolf (Score:1) Wednesday August 15, @08:10AM
      • 1 reply beneath your current threshold.
    • Re:Indeed by jayminer (Score:2) Wednesday August 15, @08:30AM
    • Re:Indeed by jayminer (Score:2) Wednesday August 15, @08:47AM
    • 2 replies beneath your current threshold.
  • Not ready for prime time. (Score:3, Informative)

    by TripMaster Monkey (862126) on Wednesday August 15, @07:01AM (#20234783)
    The popularity of Windows XP is still making things difficult for Vista.

    I wouldn't blame the popularity of XP as much as I would blame the god-awfulness of Vista. At our organization, there are so many problems we've identified with Vista on our enterprise that we've declared a moratorium on its rollout...probably until SP1 is released (which, considering how late Vista was to begin with, could take a while).

    In the meantime, I now get to blow Vista off all the new systems we purchase and replace it with XP. As if I didn't have enough work to keep me busy...
    • Re:Not ready for prime time. (Score:4, Funny)

      by east coast (590680) on Wednesday August 15, @08:08AM (#20235325)
      As if I didn't have enough work to keep me busy...

      Apparently not. You still have time to sit around and post on Slashdot... Not that I have any room to talk, I'm just saying...
      [ Parent ]
    • Re:Not ready for prime time. by cerberusss (Score:2) Wednesday August 15, @08:23AM
    • Re:Not ready for prime time. by nine-times (Score:2) Wednesday August 15, @11:04AM
    • Re:Not ready for prime time. by Cussin_IT (Score:1) Wednesday August 15, @06:02PM
    • Re:Not ready for prime time. by Anonymous Coward (Score:1) Wednesday August 15, @07:19AM
      • Re:Not ready for prime time. by Anonymous Coward (Score:1) Wednesday August 15, @07:37AM
        • Re:Not ready for prime time. by MyLongNickName (Score:2) Wednesday August 15, @07:49AM
        • Re:Not ready for prime time. (Score:4, Informative)

          by timbck2 (233967) <timbck2@gma i l .com> on Wednesday August 15, @09:43AM (#20236581)
          (http://slashdot.org/)
          I work for the State of New Mexico. Our Microsoft "Account Technology Specialist" had this to say about buying Vista licenses but using XP:

          OEM OS License: Only Vista Business and Vista Ultimate have downgrade rights to Windows XP. Rights to OEM versions of systems software are granted in the OEM License Terms. The OEM License Terms for most OEM versions of systems software do not grant downgrade rights. The exception is the OEM License Terms for the Windows® XP Professional operating system and the Windows Vista(TM) Business and Windows Vista Ultimate operating systems, which grant downgrade rights. See the full text of the OEM License Terms for the specific downgrade rights. End users can use the following media for their downgrade: Volume Licensing media (provided the end user has a Volume Licensing agreement).


          Does he know what he's talking about? I have no idea. But I'd say he's in a better position to have the correct information than most of us, who are merely guessing.
          [ Parent ]
        • Re:Not ready for prime time. by pedestrian crossing (Score:2) Wednesday August 15, @09:06AM
        • 1 reply beneath your current threshold.
    • Re:Not ready for prime time. by TripMaster Monkey (Score:2) Wednesday August 15, @07:38AM
    • 1 reply beneath your current threshold.
  • It Isn't The Popularity of XP (Score:5, Insightful)

    by NeverVotedBush (1041088) on Wednesday August 15, @07:01AM (#20234785)
    That is making things difficult for Vista. Vista is making things difficult for Vista.

    Just about every day there are stories of how it can't do something important, or has some kind of security flaw, or won't work with this or that hardware, or needs even more system resources to even run.

    What is making XP "popular" is that it doesn't have the problems Vista does. It is no advantage to XP. It's that Vista has so many faults. This isn't unlike the Microsoft even versions of DOS that sucked too.
  • MS fighting this (Score:2, Insightful)

    by high_rolla (1068540) on Wednesday August 15, @07:01AM (#20234787)
    (http://www.engcom.net/)
    And I wonder how hard MS will be trying to persuade them to reconsider. Wouldn't surprise me if in a few weeks time there is another article about how MS gave them a rather nice deal and they decided to reconsider their OS of choice.
  • Article Is Blog Spam; Direct Link (Score:1, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 15, @07:03AM (#20234797)
    The direct link is http://www.networkworld.com/news/2007/080807-vista -wireless-kept-off-core.html [networkworld.com] (and the blog's source isn't much longer).
  • by SlashDread (38969) on Wednesday August 15, @07:11AM (#20234839)
  • ha! (Score:1)

    by thatskinnyguy (1129515) on Wednesday August 15, @07:13AM (#20234859)
    Vista = pwnd! And for good reason too. I'm sure the next time the Olympic Games roll around, Vista will have had all the bugs worked-out of it. So pwnd for the time being...
  • It's funny (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 15, @07:20AM (#20234907)
    Yes, funny how all those anti-Vista stories on Slashdot now portray Windows XP as a popular OS that's loved by everyone. Before Vista, it was portrayed as pretty much the most hated system on the planet.
  • Doesn't make a difference (Score:3, Interesting)

    by mrjb (547783) on Wednesday August 15, @07:25AM (#20234943)
    The truth is that in the end it is still a choice between MS and MS.

    The same happens with detergents- that's why Unilever and Proctor&Gamble produce a multitude of detergents. If a sufficiently large group of people have a choice between 3 detergents of the same price & quality, and 2 are Unilever, it is likely that around 2/3 of the sold detergent will be Unilever.

    In this case, anything non-MS was out of the picture, so why would they complain?
  • Is anybody surprised? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by WIAKywbfatw (307557) on Wednesday August 15, @07:26AM (#20234951)
    (Last Journal: Tuesday September 06 2005, @12:39PM)
    Lenevo is choosing to go with an older, well-established OS that's tried and tested for the "mission critical" stuff rather than a newer, less tested one. So what?

    Is anybody surprised at that? Would you do things differently?

    When you have to look after everything from press accreditation to publishing results, from scheduling to putting up the correct names of competitors, and doing it all in a multitude of languages and to the tightest of schedules, what would Windows Vista bring to the party that Windows XP wouldn't?

    To use a car analogy, Windows XP has been around the block, been put through its paces, had its engine tuned and is humming nicely, whilst Windows Vista has barely had more than its tyres kicked in the dealer's forecourt. If you were taking a 5,000 mile road trip across a continent, which would you go with?

    Why anybody would be surprised at this decision, or even see it as a failing of Windows Vista, is beyond me. If you're going to go with a Microsoft OS, then common sense makes Windows XP the obvious choice.
  • In somewhat related news... (Score:5, Informative)

    by Idaho (12907) on Wednesday August 15, @07:27AM (#20234961)
    The dutch equivalent of "the consumerist" (de consumentenbond) recently started a program where consumers can send in their Vista-related problems, which they are going to urge Microsoft to fix or ask for money back (or perhaps, to give free copies of XP instead). To quote de consumentenbond [www.nu.nl] (article in dutch, relevant part translated here):

    "A power user will be able to solve most of the problems that Vista confronts him with, however the average consumer will run into serious trouble. The [operating] system contains so many mistakes that we want to investigate this in detail."

    Furthermore, the article notes that "The consumentenbond dislikes the fact that new computers are delivered with the Vista operating system by default".

    Yup, Vista seems to be doing great...
  • China has a much better handle on machines running XP than Vista. Perhaps their computer programmers are up to snuff yet on the Vista and cannot hardly get their snoop kits functioning on time for the games. China is one of those countries where every possible control on free speech is in place for when the wrong type of things get said. Its not that China censors all speech, its that as a society in general they cannot allow dissident speech.
  • Nothing new... (Score:1, Insightful)

    by TofuMatt (1105351) on Wednesday August 15, @07:32AM (#20235007)
    Vista's price, system requirements, and youth make it a less-than-optimal choice for deployment in almost any business setting. What does Vista do for, say, everyone in my office that XP can't? Most people here on PCs run MS Office (we just upgraded to 2003), WordPerfect (and the rest of that suite... gross, but it's still our Government standard), IE, and FileMaker Pro. We already have images setup for XP (just load it onto the HD and we're done), and it means that the computers that aren't so great here can still be useful to people who are just using it for standard office work. It's a new OS, and it's received a bunch of notoriety for being a pain to use and upgrade from. I'm not a crazy Vista hater (there *are* lots of problems with it, and some aren't just bugs -- they're serious OS flaws), but I doubt I could think of five reasons for most people to upgrade to Vista. I upgraded my PC Laptop to Vista Ultimate and about two months later went back to XP Pro. I didn't hate it, per se, but I just didn't feel like I had gained anything by having it (and it hogging over 400MB of RAM at idle). And I certainly lost the ability to use a handful of apps I like. I'm sure we'll see Vista adoption, but at least not until SP1 arrives. There just aren't real reasons to upgrade yet.
  • My 1st BSOD (Score:2)

    by G3ckoG33k (647276) on Wednesday August 15, @07:33AM (#20235021)
    While upgrading my Catalyst driver from 7.7 to 7.8 I had my first BSOD (Blue Screen Of Death) on Windows Vista Ultimate Eng OEM (64-bit), so yes i understand their worries.

  • Reality check time for Linux fans. (Score:3, Interesting)

    by 140Mandak262Jamuna (970587) on Wednesday August 15, @07:36AM (#20235041)
    (Last Journal: Wednesday October 31, @08:33AM)
    If a company with that much cash at hand and a willingness to break rules and fight a no holds barred battle finds it this difficult to dislodge XP from the desktop, Linux fans, we have a much more formidable task ahead. When people are asking, "Will 2009 be the Year of Vista?", it is difficult to take the talk about "the year of Linux Desktop" seriously.

    I don't know what would be a reasonable expectation for Linux market share at consumer level in the year 2010. 3%? 6%? 12%?

    • 1 reply beneath your current threshold.
  • Don't forget... (Score:1)

    by PinkyDead (862370) on Wednesday August 15, @07:40AM (#20235077)
    It's not the winning but the taking part that counts.

    Well done Vista - good effort.
  • by Renaissance 2K (773059) on Wednesday August 15, @07:41AM (#20235095)

    Just out of curiosity, does Microsoft even use Windows Vista at their offices? I have yet to hear of any place that made the upgrade. Or survived the upgrade, at least.

    Actually, what the hell am I saying? They probably use Linux in Redmond. Or they just bought a bunch of iMacs.

  • by ArcadeX (866171) on Wednesday August 15, @07:46AM (#20235145)
    the special olympics...
  • It makes sence (Score:1)

    by excelsior_gr (969383) on Wednesday August 15, @07:48AM (#20235173)
    Use XP where hardware compatibility and "out of the box" reliability is needed.
    Use Vista where a nifty & shiny GUI will make a good impression.
  • Major setback (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Reckless Visionary (323969) * on Wednesday August 15, @07:50AM (#20235185)
    "a major setback"

    Come on, really? Complete sensationalist bullshit. Why don't we keep it up and refer to these meaningless events as "the final nail in the coffin" or ones that "spell doom" or "darken the horizon" for Vista. In case you hadn't noticed, the money's all going to the same place.
  • kinda lame (Score:2, Interesting)

    by wwmedia (950346) on Wednesday August 15, @07:52AM (#20235201)
    kinda lame this makes fronpage news when more pressing issues in china like pollution during olympic games, human rights abuse and censorship by chineese takes back seat
  • by 1u3hr (530656) on Wednesday August 15, @07:55AM (#20235229)
    TFSummary links to TFA:
    http://www.pclaunches.com/software/olympic_committ ee_chooses_xp_over_vista.php [pclaunches.com]

    which just regurgitates the story from
    http://www.networkworld.com/news/2007/080807-vista -wireless-kept-off-core.html [networkworld.com]

    Why not link directly to the source instead of some blogger collecting Adsense? Network World has got advertising too, of course, but at least they earned it by doing the work and researching a story instead of just plagiarising it like a Picquepaille.

    And for fuck's sake "installing XP on it's machine".
    "It's" == "It is". Possessive is "Its".

  • Not News (Score:1)

    by daskinil (991205) on Wednesday August 15, @07:55AM (#20235231)
    This in today- People wanting a secure server use Ubuntu Dapper Drake instead of Fiesty Fawn. This isn't news, we hear stories of people using XP everyday on slashdot. I used Fiesty Fawn when it came out- it was still buggy as hell, wait for a few service packs, and maybe people will use it (referring to vista not Fiesty Fawn of course) . Just because another OS is better for mission critical apps, doesn't mean its more fun for the user. Otherwise I wouldn't be running KDE4 when it comes out. Which is sure to have at least a few bugs in minor apps for at least a year.
    • Re:Not News by deftcoder (Score:1) Wednesday August 15, @09:31AM
    • 2 replies beneath your current threshold.
  • I would add ... (Score:1)

    by rdrd (1142449) on Wednesday August 15, @08:10AM (#20235357)
    ... that "XP" is much a better name than "Vista".

    For me, vista just rings the bell with the Terminator and stuff ...
  • setback? (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Snarkhunter (1056150) on Wednesday August 15, @08:12AM (#20235379)
    I fail to see how this is a setback for Microsoft. They still get their license fees from XP (though this is China, you never know). More importantly, any time you see an athlete using a computer, or anyone using a private terminal, won't they be using Vista? I betcha any sponsorship the games get from Microsoft will be branded "sponsored by Microsoft Vista," not "sponsored by Microsoft Vista (but jokes on you guys we're really using XP for our back end stuff here at the games)"
  • Not surprising (Score:2)

    by Jugalator (259273) on Wednesday August 15, @09:12AM (#20236117)
    (Last Journal: Monday February 13 2006, @07:11PM)
    Vista could be awesome, and any serious organization would still not have picked it, so this doesn't say much. It's simply too new and unproven. Now that it has performance issues (where some seem scheduled for improvement in SP1), that doesn't exactly paint a brighter picture either. So this is a bit of a non-news item to me, mostly aimed for narcissistic open source users perhaps? ;-)
  • Remember ME? (Score:1)

    by Lorean (756656) on Wednesday August 15, @09:37AM (#20236469)
    Vista is the new ME.
  • by cpu88 (1142407) on Wednesday August 15, @10:29AM (#20237259)
    There must be some tools/utilities used by olympic official for their internal works. Are they using Windows?

    I wonder there are apps developed for olympic 2008 to use under Vista.
    If the tools to be used are initially developed for xp, it cannot be assured to be 100% running properly in Vista.

    And, yeah, maybe Olympic 2008 by EA to be released next year can work perfectly in Vista!
  • by carljordan (1143077) on Wednesday August 15, @12:05PM (#20238477)
    What's the surprise? MS always thinks it knows what is best for everyone, but sometimes they just don't get it. Vista is a very low grade upgrade, and still, so far as I know, full of problems. If MS wants to do something, they should do it big and do it right. Neither of those are characteristic of MS. FWIW.
  • Fool me once... (Score:4, Informative)

    by realinvalidname (529939) on Wednesday August 15, @12:09PM (#20238539)
    (http://www.subfurther.com/blog)

    The IOC was rather famously burned by widely-reported technological problems with IBM systems at the Atlanta games in 2006, with bugs that reported some athletes as being 7 or 8 meters tall. Near the end of the games, I recall there was a proclamation that the IOC would no longer adopt any technology that hadn't been in production for at least n years. This may simply be a case of Vista, being not even a year out of beta, not qualifying for consideration under this very conservative restraint.

    • 1 reply beneath your current threshold.
  • They sure wouldnt like to see any things that would remind them "poor performance" around in Olympics :

    Vista will only be used in internet lounges set up for athletes to use during the games
  • by qazwart (261667) on Wednesday August 15, @01:03PM (#20239209)
    (http://www.weintraubworld.net/)
    In China, the cost of bootlegged Windows XP disks are half the cost of bootlegged Vista disks.
  • Here's the thing - (Score:3, Insightful)

    by mergy (42601) on Wednesday August 15, @01:14PM (#20239363)
    MS tweaks their adoption numbers because it is not possible to buy XP licenses anymore. Instead, you buy Vista licenses and can use XP. So, I am sure for the MS marketing department and for their reporting it might look like Vista is doing great. They did this for XP to 2000 as well but not as aggressively as they did this time around.

    Vista is not something we need at the business-level.
  • What the hell? (Score:1)

    by Orig_Club_Soda (983823) on Wednesday August 15, @02:31PM (#20240379)
    Why do athletes need internet terminals!? Just because technology exist doesn't mean its appropriate for every aspect of life. Sheesh.
  • Support? (Score:2)

    Will XP even be supported in 2008?
    • Re:Support? by toddestan (Score:2) Wednesday August 15, @08:17PM
  • Of course! (Score:2)

    by wirelessbuzzers (552513) on Wednesday August 15, @08:29PM (#20244127)
    Lenovo knows that XP is just plain better than Vista. That's why on every page of their online store, it's clearly stated that Lenovo recommends Windows Vista® Business for business computing and that Lenovo recommends Windows Vista® Home Premium for personal computing.
  • I'm suprised... (Score:2)

    by A_Non_Moose (413034) on Wednesday August 15, @10:21PM (#20245065)
    (http://slashdot.org/ | Last Journal: Saturday January 05 2002, @01:42AM)
    all these comments and nothing about Vista being ready for the Special Olympics.

    /ducks and runs
  • Re:Not surprising (Score:1, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 15, @07:05AM (#20234801)
    I like your signature:

    You moved your mouse. Please restart Windows for changes to take effect.

    I might make mine:

    You moved your mouse. Please recompile your Linux kernel and modules for changes to take effect.
    [ Parent ]
    • 1 reply beneath your current threshold.
  • by rolfc (842110) on Wednesday August 15, @07:24AM (#20234941)
    I have been using it for almost a year, and in my opinion it's not ready yet.
    [ Parent ]
  • Re:Its not so difficult (Score:3, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 15, @07:38AM (#20235055)
    Why is this thread title named "Its not so difficult" instead of "It's not so difficult"?

    It really isn't that difficult. Don't have a go at other people for something you can't get right yourself, and as someone said before, it's not a spelling problem but a grammar problem.

    [ Parent ]
  • Re:Its not so difficult (Score:4, Funny)

    by mixnblend (1002943) on Wednesday August 15, @07:39AM (#20235075)

    Yeah, yeah, you may mod down the grammar Nazi now.
    fixed.
    [ Parent ]
  • by suv4x4 (956391) on Wednesday August 15, @07:42AM (#20235099)
    Why is it so difficult to get?

    I ask the same thing: why is it so difficult to get, they just don't care.

    Maybe the right question is: if they fixed it, would it bring more banner impressions.
    [ Parent ]
  • Re:Its not so difficult (Score:3, Interesting)

    by PinkyDead (862370) on Wednesday August 15, @07:52AM (#20235209)
    'fraid not.

    If you look at old maps and the like you can see the origin of the possessive form of nouns.

    For example, off the South East coast of Ireland is an area called St George's Channel (named presumably by the English after their lightweight pseudo-saint) - but if you look at older maps you will see it marked as 'St George his Channel' meaning the channel of Saint George. Shorten that and you end up with St George's Channel.

    Likewise Bob his computer. The dog its bone etc. Obviously there's a problem with Eve - but I presume this is because she wouldn't have been entitled to own anything at the time this ended up in the language.

    So I think the GP is correct - though I'm sure some grammar super-Nazi will pull me up on this.
    [ Parent ]
    • Re:Its not so difficult by Elliot_Lin (Score:1) Wednesday August 15, @08:22AM
    • Re:Its not so difficult (Score:4, Informative)

      by Snocone (158524) on Wednesday August 15, @09:09AM (#20236061)
      (http://www.alexcurylo.com/)
      tough I'm sure some grammar super-Nazi will pull me up on this.

      Your speculative deduction is both logical and original, lacking only the minor detail of veracity. There are two common explanations for the usage you cite:

      A) It was all a big mistake (technical term, "folk etymology") by Normans. The mess which is the usage of " 's " in English arises from the genitive case of Saxon, which was kinda-sorta adopted, but not consistently. So the fellow who wrote "St. George his Channel" on that map was a Norman who, completely confused by the Saxon name of the place as the locals pronounced it in their genitive case, wrote down the nearest sense he could make of it the way he spoke the language.

      B) It was a deliberate attempt to disambiguate. Take the phrase "the King of England's forests". Grammatically, this is ambiguous, as it could mean either "the King of the forests of England" or "the forests of the King of England", and is only parseable because we know that forests and non-forests do not have separate Kings. (A good example of the kind of thing that bedevils natural language AI researchers.) This problem was more vexing in medieval times, when the name of a geographical region, "England" here, could mean either "the lands of the region of England" or "the political ruler of England", so "England's ships" for instance could mean either "the merchant marine crewed by Englishmen" or "the navy of the King of England", which could vary your meaning enormously. "England his ships", on the other hand, unambiguously means the King's navy, and was deliberately adopted for that reason. As the conflation of a region with its ruler died out as a grammatical construct, so did the need for this disambiguation, and thus the possessive case was readopted universally.

      Take your pick.

      [ Parent ]
  • Re:Its not so difficult (Score:1, Offtopic)

    by pev (2186) on Wednesday August 15, @07:58AM (#20235255)
    (http://www.audiogeek.co.uk/)
    I think there's a critical observation to note - these days there's a clear separation between "American English" and "English English". In American English it's a kind of lazier language with many more complicated rules dropped and things shortened or slackened. That doesn't necessarily make it wrong, just a different parallel evolution. I wouldn't be surprised if they completely dropped the apostrophe completely one day as it would be easier. At the end of the day, people know what you mean with or without it so why use it in the first place?

    Still that still doesn't excuse American flight attendants use of the word "de-plane". Really, who thought of such a ridiculous and superfluous word?!

    ~Pev
    [ Parent ]
  • by EvanED (569694) <<moc.liamg> <ta> <denave>> on Wednesday August 15, @08:06AM (#20235307)
    ...except the other possessive pronouns.

    His computer.
    Her bicycle.
    Its bone.

    Not "hi's computer". Do you ever see that mistake?

    So yes, it is a bit weird (especially because it's the only such pronoun with just an 's' tacked onto the non-possessive form, and "it's" is a valid word), but not quite as weird as you portray.
    [ Parent ]
    • 1 reply beneath your current threshold.
  • by Angstroem (692547) on Wednesday August 15, @08:16AM (#20235419)

    "http://owl.english.purdue.edu/handouts/grammar/g_ a post.html"
    In the latter 2 examples, when "It" is used to refer to the Olympic Committee or Microsoft, then "It's" becomes the possessive case.

    You obviously didn't scroll down to the part of the page where it clearly says:

    Don't use apostrophes for possessive pronouns or for noun plurals.

    It's perfectly okay to use "it's" to signal possession.

    No, it's not. Just read the very page you liked to refer. Or just ask your English Grammar teacher if there's a money-back-guarantee regarding his (no, not his') or her (no, also not her's) lessons.

    [ Parent ]
  • by beanyk (230597) on Wednesday August 15, @08:18AM (#20235435)


    I call bullshit. The first use of the apostrophe is the possessive case. ...

    http://owl.english.purdue.edu/handouts/grammar/g_a [purdue.edu] post.html ...

    It's perfectly okay to use "it's" to signal possession.


    Did you even read the article you linked to? They specifically say that nouns (like Microsoft and committee) use an apostrophe for possession, and pronouns (like it) don't. "It's" means exactly one thing: "it is".
    [ Parent ]
  • It's perfectly okay to use "it's" to signal possession.

    Not according to the link you posted.
    [