I Am Annoyed By the Misuse of the Apostrophe

Misused apostrophes?

Many people now don't really understand simple words properly!

They know what they want to say, and it's usually possible to understand their messages, but in some situations I feel they lose credibility. The most common effects are:-
tautology,
inability to make elegant plurals of Greek- or Latin- based words (I blame Microsoft for much of that - e.g. try typing the proper, more elegant, plural of "forum"),
excessive use of the "[is]ation" suffices,
"baby talk"* and
metaphors based on misunderstood technical terms like "epicentre".

You also see a bizarre effect on a few words by American English hacking letters randomly from their root syllables - geology-texts tend to refer now to the Cainozoic as "Cenozoic", thus reversing its meaning (so I was told recently by a science teacher), while a "pedophile" is actually one with a fetish for feet, not children! Simply by the roots of the words.

The whole effect is not the language changing and adapting as it has done for centuries, but being cheapened and debased.


"baby talk". For example: each Spring when the eggs hatch, staff from the world-famous Abbotsbury Swannery erect temporary road-signs reading "Baby Swans". This patronises the adults driving the family cars to the swannery, and fails to teach the children the proper, and shorter, "Cygnets".