this post was submitted on 04 Jan 2026
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Etymologically, it's the genitive s, always has been. Since genitive s is usually written with an apostrophe, there is no reason not to do it with pronouns
The genitive is consistently not written with an apostrophe for pronouns, for good reason. Want the pronoun "he" to be "hi's" as a possessive? lol
Which is? You can't just pretend there is a reason and hope people will give it a pass.
But "his" isn't "he" + "s", neither historically nor morphologically (
hint
look at the vowel, it's differentHistorically, the possessive form both masculine and neuter singular was "his" in Old English and Middle English until "it's" replaced the neuter form in late 16c. with a clear genitive 's ending. Even later (19c.), the apostrophe became less common but there is no good reason not to revive it. source
But I guess you're not too much into etymology or historical linguistics. Most pendents aren't because once people look too much into it, they realize how anti-science their smoggery is and they adopt a more descriptive and non-judgmental view. Take that from a former pedant.