An apostrophe is really important, otherwise how do you know what I am writing when I use the three letters “its” ?
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Is this the second most pointless thread on the forum at the moment?
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Which is the first ?
you missed a language setting somewhere…
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I have avoided reading this topic until now.
Having read each post it is clear that many are passionate about correct writing and punctuation and from my piont of view also being rather pompous about it but before you tear into me let me quote a comment very early on in this thread
I am dyslexic and was ridiculed rather than helped at school which turned me away from the written word.
From early on in my working life I employed a secretary and all my correspondence was dictated directly or by dictaphone. My secretary also learnt my way of spelling and could translate to grammatically correct writing.
In my 50s I finally wrote the book I had always promised my children I would do, they all have University degrees and constantly laugh at my affliction, oh daddy!
I wrote my first book longhand and my secretary typed it.
After arriving in France I had no option but to learn how to type and then I discovered spell check and for the first time in 50 years I began to have confidence in my writing.
The thing is with dyslexia that in conversation and knowledge of your chosen subject you are an equal but you are seen as thick and lacking when pen meets paper.
I am happy now with my condition and since taking to the keyboard have written and published 2 more books and currently in the latter stages of a project over 5 volumes the first of which I hope to publish very soon.
I have a sister with a masters in English who edits my work💜.
This has been my ‘whole other story’ throughout my life.
I think it was @Geof_Cox who refered to changing language over time.
I am not a book reader but have just read 2 books by Thomas Hardy, both of which were 1940 publications so extremely small and delicate ( I am the 3rd generation owner after grandmother and mother). The mayor of Casterbridge and Under the greenwood tree.
What wonderful words, most now redundant.
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The problem is that my lady wife knows exactly how to access said language setting. 
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He’s got it set to “English - Colonial Export Version (USA)”.
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Agreed Sue. Without an apostrophe you have to guess which word is being used.
Izzy x
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Just typed this to a friend - apostrophe absolutely necessary, comma, perhaps less so …
All being well, we’ll head for the sea Wednesday for a day.
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I have a real issue with the word ‘done’ replacing the word ‘did’ here in the UK. I hear it all the time now, whether in person or on YouTube etc. Example… ‘I done the shopping yesterday’. I have to tie myself in knots trying not to correct people!!
Izzy x
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along with ‘I am sat’ for I am sitting, confusion between lay and lie, more confusion between lend and borrow, etc. etc. etc.
For those who say oo er hark at you being anti-regionalisms and classist could I point out that in Germany the huge majority of people are bilingual and speak both a genuine dialect eg Badisch, and Hochdeutsch which is the language of government/power/success.
The same thing happens with a’amiyya and fus.ha in Arabic - wherever we are, by letting people remain monoglot and not giving them the possibility of speaking like the ruling group we make it much more difficult for them to get any leverage in society.
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Just do it. You are doing them a favour.
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There are so many I wouldn’t want to influence your decision.
My own family does it! Last thing I want to do is offend them.
Izzy x
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As I sugggested earlier in the thread, context is important, so as far as I’m concerned SF posters’ missing or misused apostrophes aren’t that important to me, as they seldom if ever cause genuine confusion. Similarly, I wouldn’t dream of correcting posters’ punctuation errors any more than I’d want to correct the many misspellings that occur in these threads.
OTOH as also mentioned above, if it’s a piece of formal writing one has to be punctilious about punctuation (which varies from country to country and also may evolve over time).
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A friend of mine was interviewed on TV in the US, having just won the Penn-Faulkener lit prize. His novel is a big, fat book - lots of words. He was asked if he would change anything, since publication.
“Yes. I’d eliminate about two thousand semi-colons.”
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Exactly.
Needs a colon to be fully clear.
Two contented piglets: Truss and Coffey.
Two contented piglets: Truss, and Coffey.
Same thing, with or without the comma.
The colon, on the other hand, makes it perfectly clear
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