Apostrophe abuse

What's bollocks this week? Apostrophe's. Sorry, thats apostrophes. I mean that's apostrophes. Apostrophe abuse is everywhere these days and the sad thing is that the rules are really simple: it's usually about possession, as in the dog's bollocks (the bollocks belong to the dog) or contraction, as in that's bollocks (that's is the contraction of that is). One of the most common cock-ups is the confusion between your and you're. Remember, you're is a contraction of you are; so if you think someone is a twat, you'd write you're a twat and not your a twat.
Have you seen the shops that offer great prices on TV's and VCR's? Pluralising a word doesn't need an apostrophe. It's not Hits of the 80's, it's Hits of the 80s.
We saw a t-shirt for sale in a Queensland sports store that has a gentle dig at rugby league referees. The idea is sound but the execution is a joke: the shirt has, in capitals on the front, "YOUR OFF YA HEAD REF!" I kid you not. What kind of muppet would have signed off on that before it went to print?!
The fact that these mistakes aren't corrected, and also the increasing popularity of emailing and texting, where words are truncated and grammatical short-cuts taken, leads us to think that one day apostrophes - and other punctuation - may become obsolete. That'll be a sad day for the English language.
The bottom line is that it's laziness; just think it through before you write it down. And if you're unsure whether you need an apostrophe or not, drop us a line here at bollocks.com.au and we'll be glad to help. Think of us as the apostrophe cops or the punctuation police. Together, we can rid the world of apostrophe abuse once and for all!

P.S. Does this only happen in English ... or are Cedillas, Accents and Diaereses abused around the world? Is there a French equivalent of this site - bolleaux.fr? - where someone is blogging about French accents being left off their words? Just a thought ...