I agree with Pelican, spelling and grammar have taken a nosedive, quality-wise, over recent years. One has only to look at postings on this very forum to see the evidence.

As for place names dropping their possessive apostrophe, it has been official policy for many years to do so. The creek named for Mr Cooper, Cooper's Creek, becomes Coopers Creek. I suspect it's (speaking of this last word, there is an incredible percentage of people who don't understand the usage difference with -its-) to make signage simpler and neater (maybe even a tad cheaper).

I suspect also that the egregious tendency to put apostrophes in every plural in sight comes from a British trend going back decades to put apostrophes in foreign words ending in a vowel- witness Suzuki's and Honda's. It has spread to all plurals, regardless of whether the last letter is a vowel or consonant. Unfortunately, as Michelle has pointed out, possessive apostrophes are often left out, so one sees countless written passages these days with "plural apostropes" plastered willy-nilly thoughout, with nary a possessive apostophe in sight. It's really hard on the eyes.

The butcher's cakes were a laugh. My silliest recent example of a wayward apostrophe came in the form of - it'self.

I notice from Dr Smith's blog address (www.girlsliterature.com) that urls are also an apostrophe-unfriendly zone.

Between truncations, possessive and plural, apostrophes sure are fun and sort the players from the pretender's ;)

On misused grrrrammar, may I add endemic when epidemic or pandemic are intended, and decimate when annihilate was intended. Thank you

Apos.. U kid?
I fear texting spells 'doom' for literature in general; apostrophes are a mere footnote. I suspect spell checkers (checker's? checkers'?) do more harm than good in that respect. Lately I've noticed a remarkable number of people -including journalists, for Pete's sake- have trouble with loosing things. Let's hope they aren't trousers; although that works both ways, come to think on't.
Can I join Bernie's gang too?