705: Apostrophe Nov 12, 2016

We didn't always have writing, and even when we did, it wasn't always the same. English only gained the apostrophe which it got from French in the 1500's, and it didn't really catch on for another hundred years. Even then, there was no real consensus on its usage; sometimes it would be used to mark an omitted letter, and sometimes it was used for plural endings, especially for loan-words and words that end with a vowel: "there are 2 apostrophe's". Around 200 years ago was when people began to use it as a genitive marker to show that there was an E removed (see more here). When in the 19th century professionals attempted to standardize these rules, the ways in which apostrophes were being used were so varied and abundant that this became difficult. The rules were also arbitrary, such as having genitive endings for nouns like "boy's" but not pronouns like 'hers', except for "one's". To make this more confusing, British companies omitted the genitive-apostrophe in their names, and this is still the case in the UK on many signs and place-names, according to the Britannica Atlas. There are many causes for disagreements on this subject, such as one's age or country of origin, and so there is no one correct set of rules.