My company employs quite a lot of non-Brits in European sales, We recently got a professional training company in to run a course on writing in English, it was an older lady (so not someone of the texting generation) and I was horrified by some of the things she said, like the (proper) use of apostrophes doesn't matter any more! even implying it was incorrect.
What hope is there?
Sadly, I think your course leader has a point. Use of apostrophes has, of course, been dynamic and subject to fashion ever since a printer first used an apostrophe to mark an omission in the 16th century. Possessives seem to have retained apostrophes beyond many other contracted forms, although to the confusion of greengrocers everywhere, not for personal pronouns (his, its, whose, theirs, yours etc). Why these don't take an apostrophe for the possessive, while their nouns do, is a mystery best left to linguistic historians...
Few writers today, for example, would use one in 'fridge, or 'phone. I suspect fewer still would use "sha'n't" for shall not. Nor would any Admiral expect to be piped aboard by a Bo's'n's whistle
Rules for use of apostrophes have always been confusing. The
Wikipedia entry is actually surprisingly good on the subject, highlighting a few idiosyncrasies in usage.
I was always amused, if not bemused, by the two adjacent Piccadilly line stations, Barons Court and Earl's Court. Splendidly inconsistent.
