Why have apostrophes become so rare? Possibly because they discovered that in ancient Egyptian they could have a special meaning – something near akin to 'Well-beloved'. So a whole group of them have marched off to protest to the Great God of Grammar about being wasted all these years in the littleness of 'It's' and 'What's', or being subjected to the perils of possessiveness, when they could have been enjoying an equitable, two-way love affair with one of those other words...
