The same effect exists in German, particularly in genitive (the example
given in Wikipedia is 'Peter's Pilsbar' instead of 'Peters Pilsbar'), and
in plurals. Wikipedia refers to it as 'Apostrophitis'.
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apostrophitis
The page goes on to say that this misuse is nothing new, as, especially in
the case of the genitive, it was common in the 19th century and remained
visible throughout the 20th, despite having been abolished in the spelling
reform of 1901. In the 1996 spelling reform, the use of apostrophes was
again addressed: now, apostrophes may be used where clarification is
required - eg: Carlo's Tavern needs one, to distinguish between 'Carlos'
or 'Carlo').
Throughout this drama, people have been ordering Beck's Bier with fine
disregard of any neue deutsche Rechtschreibung!
Of some relevance to this discussion, though I don't know how accurate it
is, is the note on Wikipedia suggesting that a common side-effect of
Apostrophitis is the use of a diacritical mark in place of the apostrophe
itself.
------------------------------------------------------------
Emma Tonkin, Interoperability Focus Officer, UKOLN
On Tue, 4 Jul 2006, Nicholas Sanders wrote:
> With the 'correct' Danish genitive form being s without the
> apostrophe, it is amusing to note that the 'correct' English form is
> creeping in - as in the case of a shop in, Rønne on the island of
> Bornholm, named Simon's!
>
>
> On 4 Jul 2006, at 03:34, Peter Tan wrote:
>
> > We know that the possessive apostrophe is a relatively recent
> > development and was not used by Shakespeare, for example. If the
> > possessive apostrophe started out in the mistaken etymologising
> > belief that there was some form of elision, perhaps there might be
> > a case for getting rid of it (the way it is happening in a lot of
> > informal written text - eg St Johns Wood - and maybe even formal
> > text - eg Harrods, Woolworths), and we might be able to stop
> > telling people not to use the apostrophe in the possessive pronoun
> > its!
>
>
>
> --
>
> Nicholas J A Sanders
> _____________________
> semiotek
>
> T: +44 [0]7092 153 409
> nick@semiotek.org
> _____________________
>
>
>
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