The whole distiction between the two makes no sense to me.

Apparently, its was originally spelled it’s. If some crazy grammarian hadn’t decided to change it, I think there would be a lot less confusion about apostrophes.

Of course, the other option would have been not to introduce the possessive apostrophe in the first place.

When arguing against possessive apostrophes I normally start with the fact that language is evolving. I then go on to say that if people find possessive apostrophes difficult to use (as demonstrated by abundant misuse) then perhaps they are not worth using. I might then postulate that eventually people will put the apostrophe in for all ’s’s.

This is of course mostly tongue in cheek. What I find interesting is why people hold onto ‘proper’ usage. Is it elitism (I learnt proper grammar so everyone else should use it in the correct way) or does it actually make communication more difficult.

When I read my younger cousins emails I feel repulsed (I can, of course, fully understand what they’re trying to tell me) due to the “text” speak used. Clearly this is not the future of the English language but one has to recognise that it is changing.

Are you saying that apostrophes in general are useless or merely the posessive apostrophe?

I may be coming around to the latter point of view. I don’t really know how the possesive apostrophe originated, though I now want to do some research to find out.

In the case of conjunctions and abbreviations, I think it’s quite useful as a stand-in for omitted letters.

In either case, I can wholeheartedly recommend deploying the George Bernard Shaw quote I used above to further wind up your friends.