Talk:It (novel)/Archive 3

Its versus It's, round three

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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This has been discussed before, but never resolved:

• Talk:It (novel)/Archive 1#"Its" versus "It's"
• Talk:It (character)#Its vs. It's

Looking through the old discussions, I have identified six different points of view:

1. The possessive of the prounoun "it" is "its". Capitalizing the word doesn't change that. So the possessive of It is Its.
2. While "it" is a prounoun, It is the name of this weird creature, and therefore a proper noun. The possessive of a proper noun adds apostrophe-S. So the possessive of It is It's.
3. Its is not a name (the children invented this term, and had no way to know the creature's name). Nor is it a pronoun in the usual sense. It is a capitalized pronoun, which has a clear tradition of its own. Capitalized "He" often is used for God, and its possessive has no apostrophe: "He's got the whole world in His hand", not "He's got the whole world in He's hand." Kings and popes use a royal "We", which is similarly capitalized, and the same rule applies: Louis XIV tells his subjects "We command you to obey Our decrees" -- not "We command you to obey We's decrees." In just the same way, the possessive of capitalized It is the capitalized possessive pronoun: Its.
4. It is something invented by Stephen King, so he gets to decide what the possessive form is. In his book, the form Its is consistently used. Therefore, Its is correct.
5. It is indeed a name, as option #2 claims. But instead of following the standard "names use apostrophes" rule, the Wikipedia Manual of Style must be followed. And it states: "Official names (of companies, organizations, or places) should not be altered. (St Thomas' Hospital should therefore not be rendered as St Thomas's Hospital or St. Thomas Hospital, even for consistency.)" So while it's true that It is a name, it is the property of Stephen King and his publisher, and King's chosen possessive Its should not be altered.
6. We should rewrite the article to avoid ever using the possessive, so we don't have to decide.

My vote is that "Its" is correct. What do others think? — Lawrence King ^(talk) 06:20, 30 September 2017 (UTC)

• I prefer #6. "Pennywise" would work fine, or we could avoid possessives. But if we're going to keep this plot summary as-is, "Its" is probably the less confusing option, mostly per #1. NinjaRobotPirate (talk) 06:40, 30 September 2017 (UTC)
• #2. Unless you're prepared to commit to come back and reinstate your (actually, Stephen King's) peculiar and eccentric grammar with regard to the possessive of a proper noun (It) every two or three days for the rest of your life, I suggest we follow the rules of conventional English grammar as they pertain to proper nouns (not the lowercase pronoun "it"). Any editor who understands that "It" (capitalized) is a proper noun and not the (lowercase) pronoun "it" will assume this to be an error and quite naturally "correct" the article to follow the rules of English grammar, and we will be faced with the impossible task of enforcing King's eccentricity here. General Ization ^Talk 15:11, 30 September 2017 (UTC)

By the way, your option #3 contains a logical fallacy. By your logic, the possessive forms of the "special case" capitalized pronouns "He" and "We" should be "Hes" and "Wes" (not "His" and "Our"); they are not. General Ization ^Talk 15:25, 30 September 2017 (UTC)

Also, your assertion that "It" is not the creature's name and so is not a proper noun is fallacious. The official name of the London Underground has never been the "Tube", but that is how it is referred to by the vast majority of UK citizens, and in fact informally by its operators. "Tube" in this sense has become a proper noun to refer uniquely to the London transportation system, and all the rules concerning proper nouns are applied to it. (And no one assumes that it actually consists of a single "tube" of anything – it has assumed a distinct meaning that is completely separate from its uncapitalized form, as has "It" in this case.) General Ization ^Talk 16:29, 30 September 2017 (UTC)

I don't see any logical fallacy in #3. The argument in #3, stated in logical fashion, is as follows: (1) Certain beings are referred to by capitalized pronouns. (2) These capitalized pronouns are declined in the same way as regular prounouns, but with capital letters: thus the declension of "we, us, our, ours" becomes "We, Us, Our, Ours"; "he, him, his, his" becomes "He, Him, His, His"; "thou, thee, thy, thine" becomes "Thou, Thee, Thy, Thine". (3) "It" is a capitalized pronoun. (4) Therefore, "It" is declined exactly as the regular prounoun ("it, it, its, its"), but with capital letters ("It, It, Its, Its"). Nothing in #3 suggested that capitalized prounouns all add "s" as the possessive.

Moreover, while #3 asserts that It is not the creature's name, and also asserts that It is not a proper noun, it doesn't claim that the latter follows from the former. You are quite right that some proper nouns are not names.

Finally, I never said that I believed #3. I was summarizing the views of those in previous discussions (and some views that I saw in edit comments). — Lawrence King ^(talk) 01:07, 1 October 2017 (UTC)

I better see your argument, though I still disagree with its assumption that "It" is just a capitalized pronoun. However, you did say that you believed #3 – not here, but here, which is part of what brought us here. General Ization ^Talk 01:23, 1 October 2017 (UTC)

Fair enough. I went back and forth, and currently lean to #4. But I also find #3 somewhat persuasive. — Lawrence King ^(talk) 02:56, 1 October 2017 (UTC)

#2 - There is a reason we are capitalizing "It". We are using it as a proper noun. When speaking of your mother as "Mom", it becomes a proper noun, thus the capitalization. By calling the creature "It", that becomes a proper noun, which is why we are capitalizing "It".

That that is not the creature's "true" name is irrelevant: What makes you think the creature has a "true" name? What It's mom called it? What its driver's license says?

If King wrote "It runned" rather than "It ran", we wouldn't follow suit. As an author, he is free to do whatever he'd like with grammatical conventions. We're an encyclopedia. We treat grammar as prescriptive.

How anyone decided that "It" fits under "Official names (of companies, organizations, or places)" is a puzzle, as no one is suggesting the creature is a company, organization or place. Kraft does get to decide how to spell "Oscar Mayer". We will, however, add an apostrophe "s" to for the possessive. (We will not, however, make "Toys R Us" into "Toys R Our", presumably).

- "it" - a pronoun

- "its" - the possessive of the pronoun

- "it's" - contraction of "it is"

- "It" - a proper noun, which is the reason we capitalize it (or the pronoun at the beginning of a sentence)

- "Its" - the possessive of the pronoun at the beginning of a sentence

- "It's" - the possessive of the proper noun (or the contraction at the beginning of a sentence)

It's really that simple. - SummerPhD^v2.0 16:03, 30 September 2017 (UTC)

• #2 - I agree with SummerPhD. The fact that the children invented the term doesn't mean it's not a proper noun. Think of it as a nickname. "It's" is the only one of the options that avoids bad grammar and bad writing style (#6 is bad style; while some instances of avoiding the term are possible, repetitive avoidance of possessive inevitably ends up sounding very awkward). Sundayclose (talk) 18:25, 30 September 2017 (UTC)

If no one has any more remarks, I'm going to close this RFC. Although only four people chimed in, I think that It's has won -- especially when you consider the dozens of Wikipedia editors who didn't vote, but who have been using that form in this article and the other articles. I'm not happy with the results, but it's nice to actually have a clear verdict from an RFC. — Lawrence King ^(talk) 22:11, 10 October 2017 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Edits to It (novel) Article

Hey there editors, I am part of a university class doing an assignment on Wikipedia editing. I picked this article because I believe edits could be made to help improve the article such as reducing the length of the article, reconstructing the character lists and possibly only including characters that played a large roll in the novel, whether they were major or minor characters. I know this article has some original research and I will do my best to find ways to cite sources to support the original research. One thing I feel could also be added to the article is a more defined section for "Awards" and "Adaptations". — Preceding unsigned comment added by Lwriter18 (talk • contribs) 22:06, 6 March 2018 (UTC)

That would be really helpful. Thanks. NinjaRobotPirate (talk) 00:15, 7 March 2018 (UTC)

Summary Edits

I will be making edits to the summary. Some sentences will be revised or reconstructed and there will be some removal of information that is not entirely needed in the summary of the novel. Summaries should only provide a brief explanation of the plot. With a novel as large as "It", the summary will still be quite long. I am including a link to an article on Novel Editing in Wikipedia that helps provide a sort of blue print for novel article structure.

Wikipedia: Manual of Style/Novels — Preceding unsigned comment added by Lwriter18 (talk • contribs) 14:51, 15 March 2018 (UTC)

Pennywise Bio

The last two paragraph's of Pennywise's bio are connected too much to the summary and plot of the novel. Those paragraphs do not distinguish who or what Pennywise is, and instead display his habits and appearances. Bios should primarily give information surrounding the character and who they are. Information from the last two paragraphs exist to some degree in the summary and cause some repetition.

Also, there is a link for the character in the bio. It (character) should then be used to provide more information about the character, such as the last two paragraphs and helps keep the bio short and explanatory to initial inquiry about them as part of the novel. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Lwriter18 (talk • contribs) 02:56, 19 March 2018 (UTC)

In general, any substantial removal of content should be discussed with other editors here on the article's Talk page and consensus established before the content is removed. The content has been restored in keeping with this policy. Also, please always sign your edits on any Talk page by typing four tildes (~~~~) after them. General Ization ^Talk 03:07, 19 March 2018 (UTC)

Characters

I will be making slight edits to the character bios, mostly rephrasing sentences or modifying the structures for clarity. Because the summary does not give much information for the characters, I still recommend keeping the character bios as a opposed to a list as Cell (novel) has constructed (for example). While some characters in the list could possibly be removed due to their very minimal appearances in the novel, I will not be removing them. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Lwriter18 (talk • contribs) 22:12, 18 March 2018 (UTC)

I think that a separate page should be made for these characters and the minor ones moved over there. The article as is is huge and there aren't even sections for stuff that is recommended for novels as per MOS:NOVELS. I don't think that it will move forward until we move the bulk of those character descriptions elsewhere and open up some space for people to add info about themes and reception Etherfire (talk) 21:40, 5 April 2018 (UTC)