Standards of grammar appear to be declining in this country. Misuse of apostrophes is rife. The simple apostrophe is used to denote missing letters or to denote possession. That’s it. But they often turn up wherever there is an “s.” You must have seen the signs advertising “banana’s” or “tate’s.” I would love to boycott Clarks shoes for daring to miss out the apostrophe. Maybe it doesn’t matter and it is just the pedant in me that wants to paint over the offending mark or paint one on where necessary. But correct punctuation often does matter and a sentence can be misread. There is the famous telegram: “Not getting any better. Come at once” which somehow came out the other end as, “Not getting any. Better come at once”
Basic rules of grammar are now regularly broken, even at the BBC. I was taught that you should never say “try and” because it is “try to” but I have even heard David Cameron say the former. Somebody that went to Eton most definitely knows the rules of grammar and, in his case, some of these slips must be deliberate. Dave wants to sound like hoi polloi or as is more often (tautologically) written the hoi polloi. Your and you’re seem interchangeable now in written and spoken word. “Your stupid” is quite acceptable and not even ironic. Texting on mobile phones is surely partly to blame for this sloppiness. Does anybody bother to punctuate text messages? The ones I have seen seem to consist of as few words as possible with no vowels and numbers substituted for words. Why write for when you can use 4? Many would argue that the point of communication is simply to convey a message but sloppiness of speech and near inarticulacy are just unattractive and lazy.
In a quality newspaper I read the word “snuck” in a news article. On BBC news last week a female presenter said “restauranteur.”Surely journalists who use words as their trade ought to be able to get it right. Another bugbear is the proliferation of words I see which are deliberately mis-spelled: Kidz Klub for instance or Kuttin Krew. What is that all about? I guess it is done in the name of being wacky but it is very annoying when your children start to read and then you have to correct their spelling. There and their and even they’re. Does anybody know the difference any more? Does anybody care about such trivia?
A few people still care. Though they are all middle-aged. A local man set up the Apostrophe Protection Society and Lynne Truss had a surprising bestseller with her book “Eats, Shoots and Leaves; The zero tolerance approach to punctuation” Then there is Pedants’ Corner where you can have a good moan about how nobody knows the difference any more between “have” and “of.” Hearing “could of” is enough to enrage anyone. Naturally we all make mistakes and in this post I have broken one of the rules of pedants’ corner “because ending a sentence with a preposition is something up with which we shall not put.”
Twenty First Century Housewife 
Well I must say, when I think of the “Thought Police” You are not one of “Names” that comes to mind, however reading your latest offering had my bad eye drooping with displeasure. However One can’t agree with ones peers on every issue can one, I would imagine that would create a sameness and standardization of societies mores that one as erudite, anarchistic and philosophical as yourself would find unacceptable .
Why then, for someone who abhors “Political Correctness” and who proclaims living “in the Now”, do you have this anachronistic attitude to the written text ?.
The standard English I believe you refer to in this diatribe, including the dreaded “Apostrophe” are nothing but a Victorian academic, religious and legal construct, generally incorrect, hypocritical and artificial in the worst possible way created to keep the common man from understanding the content and to reinforce the class divide !
English is a living language spoken by far more people in the world than reside on these wonderful Isle’s.
It has evolved continually for the last thousand years and continues to evolve and we should celebrate this, I doubt if you would be happy with the grammar and spelling in this text from the 1688 Bill Of Rights.
“A B doe sweare That I doe from my Heart Abhorr, Detest and Abjure as Impious and Hereticall this damnable Doctrine and Position That Princes Excommunicated or Deprived by the Pope or any Authority of the See of Rome may be deposed or murdered by their Subjects or any other whatsoever. And I doe declare That noe Forreigne Prince Person Prelate, State or Potentate hath or ought to have any Jurisdiction Power Superiority Preeminence or Authoritie Ecclesiasticall or Spirituall within this Realme Soe helpe me God.”
Standard English has, unlike nearly every other language never had a governing body, their is no correct way to pronounce or write it extant.The English language however is recognized by the ISO with three separate codes, these codify the languages spoken in different parts of the world, they do not codify how it is pronounced or written, it is the official language of many world governing organisations and varies wonderfully in it’s usage.
THE ONLY IMPORTANT CONSTANT is the ability to comprehend the content, this is what language is for, the conveyance of the message, I seethe with indignation when some self proclaimed academic or reviewer says something is badly written, refusing to look past so called bad grammar and spelling to the wonderfully created content, as for the interchange of letters in words, this has always been the common use, K for C, F for S etc.as long as the first and last letter are the same and it has the requisite number of letters in you can read and understand the word, the mind adapts quickly.
Of course we are now in the computer age were one click of the mouse can rectify any spelling or grammar, but to what, American high school standard, A level standard? These are meaningless but worrying results of computerisation and academic exams, creating even more confusion in students and writers resulting in an urgent need for them to check the real spelling or grammar and taking their concentration off the content for fear of criticism.Common usage is by far the most important aspect and I revel in the ever changing world of evolving English, with it’s multi country usage and so called slang inputs, long live the message, whether encased in Hip Hop,slang or beautiful prose. Written by me,ever so slightly tongue in cheek.