Is it possible that Bill Gates is partly responsible for the upsurge in the greengrocer’s apostrophe? I was just typing this passage into Microsoft Works:
The dangers of exposing children to violence and sex on TV are currently being widely discussed but there is really nothing new in this. In my youth there was, naturally, no television but we were exposed daily to something just as crowded with violent and unsavoury happenings and sexual deplorablenesses.
(It’s by Arthur Marshall.) And guess what? That last word was magical transformed into deplorableness’s. I tried with other words: unkindnesses, awkwardnesses, coldnesses, awarenesses, the same thing happened. With blindnesses I was given the option: blindness’s or blandness’s? But likenesses was unchanged. Sheesh.
Dadge 