Isn't It Time We Sorted Out The Apostrophe?

I wonder if you saw the recent news item which questions if we are becoming a nation of illiterates?

Councils across the UK have had to fork out hundreds of pounds to correct street signs boasting spelling and punctuation mistakes.

Brighton and Hove City Council spent £165.29 to correct a wall sign for St James's Street in Kemp Town that had been erected without the apostrophe.

In Bournemouth £20 was spent correcting a sign that had put the apostrophe in "children's" in the wrong place. Considerably more was spent in Ashford to replace two signs that contained spelling mistakes; the total cost of repairs came to £204.74.

Two new street nameplates cost Dover District Council about £100 in July 2005. "It was in respect of Wilcox Close, Aylesham," a spokesperson explained. "The error was that a nameplate had been ordered with a double 'l', so the error was that of the district council."

Just last year Birmingham City Council announced it was abolishing apostrophes from road signs. St Paul's Square (see picture at the top of this blog) became St Pauls Square in one of many changes the council said it was making for the purposes of consistency and to avoid confusion over whether place names should take an apostrophe.

Wasn't [short for was not] there once a rule taught in schools which said "If it belongs to somebody then it's [short for it is] apostrophe s. [John's book - the book belonging to John] Similarly if a letter is missing an apostrophe should be inserted at the point of the missing letter.