You can't have too many apostrophe's

I'm liking all these responses!

And, YES, I did ironically make a grammatical error in my post - oh, the tastiness of the irony! It should indeed have been "grocers' apostrophes".

(Seriously, thanks for pointing that out.)

Didn't common-use cause the Queen's English to devolve into American English? And what is the correct usage of an apostrophe? I once was a stickler for correct grammar and found over the years that it was irrelevant even in arena's where one might not expect. English is such an imprecise language that the mere fact we can conceive ideas and generally communicate them is remarkable in itself. The fact is that common usage prevails, eventually. I am aware of the numerous errors in my response but as noted by others "So What??"

No, it's not irrelevant. There are just a couple gray areas but plenty where the rules are completely clear - such as with plurals. Writing "arena's" when you mean "arenas" makes your writing quite awkward to read for somebody who understands the rules of grammar.

Mr. Tennis, whether or not grammatical rules exist is not a matter of opinion. Whether or not they are important is, but even you must have your limits? (Not that there's anything 'wrong' with your grammar, other than the lack of any capitals, which I personally don't find distracting.)

I grew up reading the Chronicle out of San Francisco which was notorious for bad spelling and grammar, the result of which is, whatever is trying to be said gets through and the manner in which it is said is either overlooked or ignored. Apostrophes' as well.

And by the way, T_bone, your post was hilarious. :)

What I'm lamenting here - and of course I was aware that few care - is that the standards of grammar are no doubt *slipping* in this country, and that's just really a shame. I don't mean this to sound arrogant, but, yes, you WILL sound stupid to certain people if you cannot write at even a high school level.

And it's not a matter of laziness, obviously - I'm all for shorthand where it's convenient, and I feel for you non-touch-typists. But, no, all those extra apostrophes are actually EXTRA effort!

This might be my last post in the thread. Now you guy can burn me in effigy; have a blast! :)